Notes from the Electoral Preschool

Another election day has ended, and with it my month of popularity. I will miss the hourly phone calls from my new friends. How will I get through the day without hearing their tinny voices droning, "This is Doobie Frankenwaller reminding you to vote for me for County District Circuit Court Constable"? I will also miss my new friends' mothers, who checked in with me regularly to intone, "Please vote for my gorgeous little boy for Township Sewer Checker, he's such a good little boy." But like everyone I shall soldier on, taking with me the political lessons learned from this political season.

For example, I've realized that there really are only two possible platforms, no matter what office is being sought. The upstart, the candidate seeking office for the first time, will say, "Change. Change. Change. New leadership. Throw out the bums, we can do better!" Once the upstart has been in office, his or her relection platform will be, "Experience! What we need now is experience! I have experience and my opponent is just an upstart."

No one ever seems to notice the falseness of this dichotomy. If the main qualification for being elected to office is having previously held office then we could just cancel elections and allow incumbents to stay in place for life. On the other hand, changing the person holding office does not change the nature of the office itself, nor does it change the political system nor the power structure. "Change" is just shorthand for "Me, not the other guy." We can vote out each and every incumbent member of the US Congress and would still wake up the next day with the US Congress. Only the nameplates would change.

I also learned that there really is no convincing people of the importance of municipal primaries. Without Congressional, Senatorial, or Presidential candidates on the ballot, very few will take two minutes out of their day in order to vote. Although this says something sad about the state of participatory democracy, it does turn a visit to the polls into a party. I'm guessing that about 250 people voted in my entire ward. I probably know 245 of them, and got to catch up with many of my neighbors after casting my ballot. A low turnout also turns district races into nail biters, where a 10-vote lead with one precinct reporting can be insurrmountable.

When it's all said and done, it's all said and done. My irises are about to bloom, which means it's time for everyone to pack up their yard signs and stick them in the basement until November, and, most importantly, it's safe to answer my phone.

Singles' Awareness Day

Back in the day, Rome was surrounded by wolves, so Romans needed a god to protect them from these lupine creatures. Each February 15 they celebrated Lupercalia, a rite associated with the god of wolves connected not to romantic love but to fertility. Here's what Plutarch says:

"At this time many of the noble youths and of the magistrates run up and down through the city naked, for sport and laughter striking those they meet with shaggy thongs. And many women of rank also purposely get in their way, and like children at school present their hands to be struck, believing that the pregnant will thus be helped in delivery, and the barren to pregnancy."

When an early Pope named February 14 St. Valentine's Day, he could have been referring to any of three St. Valentines. To understand how the day became associated with love, well, just blame it on Chaucer. In fact, as you go through life, blame anything you don't understand on Chaucer; it works for me.

The practice of sending cards originated, of course, in the United States, when in 1847 a woman whose father owned a stationery company began printing up embossed love cards. Heart-shaped boxes came about a century later, as did the practice of schoolchildren bringing in a card for every kid in the room.

I'm a traditionalist, which means I'll be spending my day with the magistrates, running around naked with a shaggy thong. Please join me in this anti-capitalistic celebration of the day.