Cathy Zimmerman: And the politicians think this was hard on them?
Monday, November 10, 2008 4:34 PM PST
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E-mail this articleColumn by Cathy Zimmerman
This Day Editor
Driving down the streets at daybreak, I hold conversations with myself.
In this season of bizarre reversals, I’m probably not alone. So many observations, scenarios, thrills and spills. The ways our knees have been jerking, we should all have torn ligaments.
On this last day of an unforgettable campaign, thoughts tumble like yellow leaves.
Really, should we hope to be governed by people “just like us?” Would you want the job? The campaigning alone would drive me crazy.
It’s not just the going and going, but the talking and talking. Most of us don’t like public speaking. For months, candidates did nothing but. How did they keep from saying something that would blow their chances to bits? (Well, I guess they did touch ground on that one.)
Another mystery. Why do they look so perfect?
Nieman Marcus or not — if any of us had to follow their schedules for 10 months we’d look like meth addicts.
They’re allowed two expressions: joyful and thoughtful. It’s hard to tell what they’re really feeling. But that could be the cosmetic urgery. If I were Gwen Ifill, my first question in the VP debate would have been to Joe Biden: “Jeepers creepers, where’d you get those peepers?”
John McCain’s face has a surprised, even a frightened look, and I don’t think it’s just the polls. Maybe he got a glimpse of Cindy McCain in one of her harrassed moments, when she looked like Cruella DeVille but with colorful clothes.
It used to be that only starlets put their faces on the rack. Now everybody’s doing it. And sometimes it doesn’t turn out too good. I never thought the day would come when I’d want to look away from Robert Redford’s face. Ouch!
Now that it has become a personal failure to age, it seems the candidates are getting carved up by surgeons as much as by pundits. Hillary’s campaign may have been tough, but it took years off her face.
I could be wrong. Reality plays tricks on us when everything is over-staged.
The night I turned on TV for the Democratic National Convention, I thought it was a video game. When Barak Obama strolled out, he looked like he’d been photo-shopped into the scene. Who knows? It could have been special effects that made the crowd so big, like the battle scenes in “Lord of the Rings.”
Campaigns can seem unreal. But when they’re as hot as this one, they take a real toll on our health.
Stressed out since the primaries, my husband and I gorged on comfort food. Our habits gave new meaning to the term “political junkie.” I only hope the antioxidants in red wine cancel out the trans fats in ice cream.
It’s not just calories that pile on in an election season. My blood pressure spikes even when I watch “The Lehrer Report.”
My walking partner and I can’t avoid politics on our brisk circling of the lake, cancelling out all health benefits except for bone density. Which would be a good title for a political talk show. “And now, from Washington, Bone Density! A weight-bearing exercise for your brain. With news anchors Max Fosa and Britt L. Boniva.
Hypertension or not, I’ll miss this campaign. There were times of transcendence and hope, hilarity and disgust. From the Rev. Wright to Sarah I’m-free-of-witchcraft Palin, it was never boring.
There are things, however, that I won’t miss:
Name calling and robocalling and calliing the election before it’s over.
The squiggly lines underneath the debates.
The winking. The pundits. The guy with the plunger.
Pundit, by the way, is from the Hindi word for “learned person.” And still, not a single newscaster addressed the question of how many angels can dance on the head of a talking point.
Speaking of pointed heads, that whole yapping-dog, purple-faced pundit thing? It is so withered and dead.
In responsible households, parents teach their children to listen politely and not to interrupt, raise their voices or use rude language. Meanwhile, careers in verbal cage fighting have exploded on TV and radio, where those who rail against the elite media pull in $20 million salaries as elite members of the media.
They earn it, though, don’t they? It’s a rare skill, reducing every human being to the nearest common stereotype.
Here’s my dream: A populist who actually likes the populace. Someone who feels equally at home on a ranch as in a law library, who can groove on Mozart, Mos Def and LeAnn Rimes, who marvels at the crannies of the far reaches of the world as well as the Grand Canyon and the concrete canyons of Manhattan.
Someone who has gay friends, Bible-believing buddies and at least one acquaintance who is both.
No. Instead of the real world, which has been sighted even in Vader, we’re told that there are two Americas, polarized by hate. But come tomorrow, and January 7 and May 22, won’t we be running into those other Americans at church and Fred Meyer? Won’t we all be worried about our jobs, our kids’ tuition, our dad’s Parkinson’s disease, our neighbor’s deployment to Afghanistan?
My best self believes we’ll patch together some common ground and go to work there.
My cynical self is not so sure.
Habits of blame and contempt are like caffeine, a handy dose of cheap adrenaline. What we really need is a sustained energy source, made up of creativity, cooperation, guts and discipline. In this time of trial, all the candidates have insisted we have such resources. We shall soon see.
Originally published Nov. 4, 2008.
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