Apegrrl's Blog: Random Rants

Political Speechmaking

Quite a week, eh? So, I’ve only seen parts of the convention, but already I’ve had to pull out the hankie several times. I’m serious. First there was Al Gore – if he had shown as much humility and humor in 2000, perhaps things would have gone very differently. Especially after seeing the scene in Farenheit 9/11 with the (was it a dozen or more?) African-American Representatives standing up to question the election results, and his grim duty to dismiss each of them for want of a Senator with the spine to agree with them, I feel for the guy. I guess I’m just a sucker for hard-luck cases.

Jimmy Carter was the first real tear-jerker. The guy was up there, starting to show his age a bit, but with so much passion and sparkling intellect. It was great to see his frank (and apparently un-vetted) appraisal of what has gone wrong with the foreign policy of the current White House residents.

Then Hillary Clinton came on – turned out flawlessly, looking like a movie-star, with the slick self-assurance to make her come off as classic presidential material. Her politics may not always be spot on, but it’s clear she draws so much enmity from the right-wing because she is totally on-target for becoming the first woman to be elected President of the USA (sad that we’re so far behind so many other countries that have had women leaders, ain’t it).

And of course, Slick Willie was in fine form, making the ideal cheerleader for the Democratic Party, garnering laughs at all the right moments, deflating critics before they had a chance to strike. I loved the way he turned the “class warfare” whining on its head, pointing out that he is now a member of that elite upper-crust, and he still thinks it’s wrong. Brilliant!

Now I haven’t had a chance to see Tuesday’s convention speeches yet (a friend is giving me a tape, so I may have something to say soon), but I did see the first half of Wednesday’s. Dennis Kucinich’s idealistic mantra of unity, and his infectious smile, really got to me. I’m so glad that some of those delegates stuck with him, and cast their votes for him. Again, I guess I’m a sucker for hard-luck cases.

Al Sharpton was absolutely ON FIRE! He got my adrenaline racing, and I had to pull the hankie out a couple more times. I laughed out loud when he said “If George Bush had chosen the Supreme Court in 1954, Clarence Thomas would never have got to law school,” and (of Latinos and “English Only” legislation) “No one gave them an English test before we sent them to fight in Iraq,” (of Republican pleas for African-American loyalty to the “Party of Lincoln”) “We never got our 40 acres… We never got our mule, so we decided to ride this donkey as far as it would take us.,” and perhaps best of all, “The promise of America is that government does not seek to regulate your behavior in the bedroom, but to guarantee your right to provide food in the kitchen.” When Sharpton said, “Our vote… is soaked in the blood of four girls from Birmingham. Our vote is sacred to us... Our vote is not for sale,” I was in tears. I wept again when he talked about Ray Charles’ rendition of “America the Beautiful,” and the need to keep on believing that we can make a nation that is beautiful for all it’s people. What a great speech! What a spectacular orator! We need ten thousand more such passionate speakers on soapboxes in town squares in every state of the Union.

I cut out on the second half of the convention because I wanted to go see someone who was talking in person. Jim Hightower came for a talk and book-signing at our local beacon of free-press goodness, Bookshop Santa Cruz. He gave nearly the same (terrific, funny) talk as he did on our local radio station, KUSP, the day before (a disappointing but common situation for writers on tour), but what was fascinating to me was the audience response and the way he dealt with audience questions. Now Santa Cruz is a tough crowd: well-informed, opinionated, and probably farther left than any audience the writers expect to face. So while the majority of the packed-beyond-capacity crowd laughed and applauded at all the right moments, many of the questions where of the “why don’t you go farther in supporting my pet cause?” variety. Still, I think it’s good for writers on the national stage to hear from our local lefties – keeps ‘em on their toes. And I just loved seeing Bookshop’s owner standing at the back and beaming out over the crowd like a proud papa. This is the guy that decided to sell Rush Limbaugh’s book a few years back – by the pound, at the same price as bologna at Zoccoli’s Deli next door. What a great dude! No wonder our local independents are thriving despite the neighborhood’s infestation by a Borders down the street.

I was particularly taken with Hightower’s eloquent answers about supporting Nader in 2000, but not this year. Probably I feel this way because his views and strategy precisely mirror my own. In 2000, right up until the bitter end of the campaign, we were pretty sure that Gore was a shoe-in. Supporting Nader was about putting pressure on from the left, making sure that our leaders remembered that there were people clamoring for a more progressive and environmentally wise government. Some people claim that without Nader in 2000, Gore would have won one of the other contested states, so the Florida miscount wouldn’t have been so crucial. While I think it unlikely that Nader drew as many votes from Republicans as Democrats (as he has claimed), I think he got a lot of people interested in the election and motivated to go to the polls who otherwise wouldn’t have bothered, and a lot of them probably ended up voting for Gore when they saw it was a close race (I myself was a Nader-Trader, exchanging a vote for Gore here in still-close California with a vote for Nader in no-hope Colorado). Yes, there were important differences between Gore and Bush, as we have since learned to our great chagrin, but there were too many important similarities to ignore. As Hightower said, Nader’s job in 2000 was to point out the shortcomings of the business-as-usual, business-as-God politics of the two major parties, and he did an admirable job of getting that message out and waking-up the grassroots. But as I said earlier, the Greens have the right strategy this year, leaving the contested states alone for the presidential race, and focusing on winning seats farther down the ticket.

Take-home Message: Political speeches are great entertainment, but we all need to get out there and get involved this year!

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apegrrl@
rattlebrain.com

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If you're so inclined, have a look at my idea for a Missionaria Protectiva to improve literacy, democracy and environmental awareness in the countries with the most biodiversity.

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last updated 09-Dec-2004
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Political Speechmaking

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