November 2nd, 2010

OK...I wrote the following 10 days ago and despite what I said at the end of the piece, I did vote today. I didn't vote Democratic or Republican! I did the Chinese Menu version of voting...one from column A and one from Column B! I also am not proud to say this, but I voted the Imus plan for NY State Governor and voted for the Rent is Too Damn High candidate, Jimmy McMillan. Even though I was frankly offended by this candidate in the beginning, I came to realize that I couldn't vote for Paladino and I really didn't want to vote for Cuomo! Absent the possibility of voting for None of the Above, I voted for Jimmy McMillan! The sad thing about what I did this afternoon, with the exception of one or two votes cast, the majority of my votes today were against someone rather than for someone. Sad but true...

So in the end, I got to say I voted, but did I do it more out of habit of doing it for the last 40 years, or because I still believe in the process? Hard to say...and don't get me started on the new voting machines!

Have a good night and be happy this is all behind us...if only for a few months! No more phone calls, junk mail, folks at the train station handing out campaign material, and worst of all, 2 bit politions' radio commercials!

Now...if you want to see where my head was 10 days ago, here is what I wrote on the 23rd of October!

Politics…are you even old enough to remember when that wasn't a dirty word? Do you remember when politicians were folks we all looked up to? Again, unless you were born before a certain time, your answer to this question is probably no, too! A long time ago (and I mean a LONG time ago), immigrants to this country would say that America was such a wonderful place, in part because anyone could grow up and become President. As the father of three children, there is nothing worse I could wish on upon them, than to become politicians…and become President?? The worst of the worst! So where did this whole process change, and did it change, or did we change? I think my earliest political memory was the Presidential election of 1960, when John F Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson ran against Richard Nixon and Henry Cabot Lodge. We lived in Jackson Heights, Queens at that time, and I remember a huge rally on the corner of 82 Street and 37th Avenue one Saturday afternoon, just before the election with Vice Presidential candidate Henry Cabot Lodge. I remember the streets crowded with people and catching a glimpse of Henry Cabot Lodge in the backseat of a big black convertible. After all these years, the memory is pretty dim, and it almost seems like a very excited election scene from a movie, rather than reality! Of course, as exciting as that rally was to a kid who was years away from voting, we know that it was the JFK and LBJ slate that got elected and took office, and we know about the Camelot nature of JFK's Presidency, and of the tragic end to that fairytale when JFK was assassinated in November of 1963. As the years went by though, we learned more and more about the Kennedys, and like a friend who you learn too much about, perhaps we learned more than we wanted to know! The women, the back room politics, the manipulation of the press and the reality that was behind the image that was created for the American public. I guess we were naïve, or perhaps it was a time when we wanted to believe the best of people, but after the fact, we've discovered that the reality was anything but the fairy tale we first believed. Move our time traveling time machine ahead to the 1970s, and the second term of President Richard Nixon. I remember election night of 1972 very well, and this time, not like a movie scene! I was in my first year of working at WHN Radio in New York, and was assigned election night to the NY Nixon Headquarters at the Roosevelt Hotel. This was my first Presidential election working at a big time station and having an important assignment! I remember being there in person, and that it was a lot different than what you saw on TV News reports. Nixon won that election by a landslide, and I remember the down right nasty nature of the crowd at Nixon Headquarters when Senator George McGovern came on TV with his concession speech. Of course, that second Nixon term also gave us the word Watergate, a very revealing look into the world of dirty politics in Presidential elections, also the Nixon phrase, "I am not a crook," and ultimately, in August of 1974, the only Presidential resignation in the history of the United States. The more we learned about the Nixon White House, the more disturbing it got. Then we also started learning about previous office holders and how some of the very things that got Nixon in trouble, were just continuations of existing practices. Frankly, historical works about politicians throughout the history of our country have shown some pretty nasty pictures of what's going on behind the scenes! If you've watched the HBO series Boardwalk Empire on Sunday nights, you've seen how the political world and the criminal world of Atlantic City, NJ merged. If you read the book that the series is based on (Boardwalk Empire: The Birth, High Times, and Corruption of Atlantic City, by Nelson Johnson) as I have, you discover that the political corruption that you see in the TV show is but the tip of the iceberg of the corruption that ran through the state of New Jersey – and NJ wasn't and isn't alone! One would have thought that after Watergate and the Nixon resignation, politicians would have realized that the rules of the game had changed. That the term "Investigative Journalist" had been born, and that the press would no longer be turning a blind eye to the behind the scenes deals, bribes, shenanigans, payoffs, and the like…but they didn't! How many times since that fateful day in 1974 when the 37th President of the United States resigned, have we seen a politician do the perp walk? How many Mayors, Governors, Senators, Congress people, State Legislators, School Administrators, etc. have been caught with their hands in the till, or making a deal to get something for nothing? You start to wonder if everyone who seeks office has a totally different agenda than the public. But who's to blame?? Is it them…or is it us? French political philosopher, Alexis de Tocqueville said that "in a democracy, we get the government we deserve". Be it a local village official, a county, state or federal office holder, right up to the President of the United States, in my mind it is a thankless job. I have often wondered after seeing the down and dirty side of political campaigns and the crap that these office holders go through once they've been elected, why the hell would anyone put themselves through that? I know I am not alone in thinking this. So, who do we then get to run? Do we get the most qualified folks wanting to do this for the public good? Or do we get the guy or gal who is doing it because after all the garbage, there is something in it for them. Be it ego, power, position, or yes, even the desire to raid the public's treasury for their own good, are our candidates more interested in what we can do for them rather than what they can do for us? Do we indeed get the government we deserve? So there's where I am in this most dreaded of times…the last weeks before the election. Between the constant political ads on TV, having to dodge the candidates every day at the LIRR station, receiving endless political mailings in the mail, placed in my front door, and dropped on my front porch, candidates knocking at my front door during dinner, and then the constant stream of the most outrageous political ads I hear every day at work at WABC for races in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, I have to say that the next week plus till election day could not pass fast enough for me! I am so tired of the constant messages that tout change and independence, a new beginning, and all the other tired, worn-out lies that we are told every political season! Our Traffic Director at WABC, Joel Santisteban calls them all, "two bit politicians" and I agree! I'll be honest with you…two years ago I fell for the message of Barak Obama. He was the candidate of change and his Presidency would bring new beginnings with the chance to really change the way the business of government was done. A break from the past, and a chance for everyone working together for the good of America! Sounded really good, and on Election Day 2008 I joined many of my fellow Americans and pushed the lever down for Barak Obama. Like many folks who voted for President Obama, it didn't take long after he was inaugurated to discover that once again, we'd been lied to! It seemed that the only thing that changed was the folks who were in power, and who were pushing the buttons. Partisan politics was alive and well in Washington, DC, and it was just new folks who were wielding the power! So rather than elevate my thoughts on politics and politicians, it just proved to me once again that they are all alike. A politician, is a politician, is a politician! For over 40 years, I have done my best to vote in every election that I was eligible to vote in. I was one of those bozos who thought that it was my responsibility to vote, and that the folks who didn't vote had no right to complain about what happened as they had a chance to have a voice in it, but chose not to exercise the right. I will admit to you that after the way things have gone with various candidates lately, I am starting to wonder if having one in office over another really makes a difference. Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, etc., does it really matter? I'm not proud to say it, but I kind of understand more and more why some folks just don't bother to vote. You really have to wonder if it makes any difference in the end!