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Blogs by Erik Hare
Still About People 2/6/2008 6:56:53 AM
This might be a hard blog entry for me. No, it’s not because I was wrong about Obamania striking the nation – but because I really have to move on from politics for a while. The biggest event is over, and the Democrats are remarkably even while the Republicans look to continue sniping at a clear front-runner. What really concerns me is that something was missing last night at our Precinct Caucuses that I was hoping to be able to write about.
This is a piece I did for stpaulrealestateblog.com last Sunday, leading into the caucuses that we usually have here in Minnesota:
The event isn’t about politics as much as it is about getting out and seeing people we haven’t seen since it got cold outside. Politics brings us out, but we stay for the gossip and news.
That didn’t really happen last night, as our precinct was swamped by 4-5 times as many people as usual turning out to vote in what was nearly a primary. Saint Paul has Obamania, that much is clear, so you can see where my predictions came from. The way it was handled will only increase calls to move to a primary system in this state.
When I first came here from Miami, by way of Pittsburgh, the caucus system utterly baffled me. I wanted a primary, which was something I could relate to. Yet it wasn’t long before I was sucked into the importance of a caucus system.
It started with a trip to a school I knew nothing about before, since I was new to the place and had no kids. The school was elegant and broadly proportioned, stuffed with all the amenities that I could possibly imagine a child would need to be a part of a caring world of wonder and learning. This was where my tax money went, after all. I was impressed. My own Coral Reef Elementary School back in Miami was a tar-paper shack by comparison, the memory of it bringing up a brief blush that I was some kind of Beverly Hillbilly in this land of great wealth.
The people who were there welcomed me, eagerly explaining the process. They were warm and kind and seriously interested in what I had to say. They made me want to be with them. I am one of the very few people you will ever meet who was brought into the DFL as a Dukkakis Democrat, but the truth of it is that I learned what it means to be a Minnesotan fast.
Last night was exciting, but among all of these people who were there for the first time, I felt they were cheated a bit. The long lines and bubbling noise of chatter and coats rubbing together was no replacement for the experience that brought me into the process. Yes, a real primary is more efficient when if comes to running a Democracy. But who the Hell thinks that Democracy is ever all that “efficient”?
The results were impressive all the same. I made a few good calls yesterday, and I think my marking New Jersey as the Bellwether was correct – tight, but advantage Clinton. I also saw the Republicans rallying around their team as Republicans do, except I did not follow my own earlier advice that Christian Conservatives rarely tell pollsters what their plans are; Huckabee should not have surprised me as he did.
Why didn’t Obamania catch on? It has in the middle and south, while the coasts are Clinton territory. That’s very distressing to me as someone who sees the great divide of this nation a bit differently than the usual Red/Blue routine. This appears to be a serious class struggle, and the parts of the nation that identify with struggle and hard work are going one way, while the parts that identify with opportunity and potential are going the other. Obama’s message of hope is registering with those whose hope has run rather thin, while Clinton’s message of a steady hand is playing with those who see their own path clear ahead of them.
It’s not surprising, after all, but our divisions are starting to look more like they did in the late 1920s. That seems to be the world we are in right now. Will we learn from history, letting it gently rhyme as its songs measure out our lives, or will we wait for the chorus to come back and repeat in our ears endlessly? Time will tell.
I gave three scenarios yesterday and said that Obama would come in on the high end of the three. He came in on the low end, and we have a hard fight. I’m happy I got the range correct, but upset that I picked the wrong end of it. McCain did what I expected, but I forgot the pull of a Huckabee. In the end, I think I generally underestimated how divided this nation really is. Let’s hope that airing all of this out will be productive and get us past what’s in front of us.
That's why I missed sitting down and talking about stuff. Voting is good, but it only gets us so far. We need to understand what's going on just as clearly as I understood where my tax dollars were going when I first walked into a Minnesota elementary school. I hope I can contribute something to the effort to understand our divides clearly enough that we can heal them.
