The people's pulse had taken, charted, predicted, and catalogued. And they were told exactly whom they would elect, and by what majority. And yet---it couldn't hurt to watch the campaign, anyhow.
That was Edward R. Murrow, in 1949, reviewing the elections of 1948, for volume two of the documentary album I Can Hear It Now.
That was then. The people's pulses were taken, charted, predicted, and catalogued this time around, too, and once again they were told whom they would elect and by what majority. And it hurt like hell to watch the campaign, anyhow. Campaign watching today makes that of 1948 seem to have been watching a world class World Series. (In case you wondered, in the actual 1948 World Series the Cleveland Indians beat the Boston Braves. Not even the Chicago Tribune could misfire that one.) This year, we got a world class World Series and yet another season of no-class politics, protesting, punditry, and posturing, bottom to top, left and right, as if the sole legitimate response to any reminder that we stand on the shoulders of giants is to pee down their collars.
I thank God every day for living in a state where I am under no obligation to validate such sewage and can exercise that lack of obligation by voting "None of These Candidates." (I might have made exceptions if the surprise party was on the ballot.) I'm more inspired by races between the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote, if only because when Wile E. Coyote, Genius, blows himself up, smothers himself under yet another misfiring Acme trap, or ends up going off his umpteen millionth cliff, he only hurts himself, not the country.
