Casual
_Casual My Son the Libertarian E.J. Dionne's Election Day Washington Post column was positively Whitmanesque, an evocation of the envelope-stuffing communitarian politics of his Massachusetts...
...But you're a Republican," he replied...
...I would vote in the full spirit of Dionnism, with an optimistic spring in my step—even though I am a weirdly jinxed voter...
...It won't be safe for the buses to bring us to school, and I'll get to stay home...
...Too short, in fact...
...Dionne even takes his kids to the polls with him, the better to pass on the faith...
...And me," he chirped...
...Dayid Tell...
...I voted against her...
...Her upscale constituents love her...
...In his victory speech that night, Clinton referred to his political opponents as "those who sought to stop America's progress with the politics of personal destruction...
...But E.J., who I thought might haul off and punch me right in the bazoo, instead greeted me warmly...
...I like E.J...
...Let's try again—for E.J...
...At this I'm afraid I lost my temper...
...You think Democrats suck...
...Who else...
...Why he didn't reach around and kill his tormentor is beyond me...
...Perot got 13 votes...
...Connie Morella is the incumbent congresswoman for the Maryland neighborhood we moved into this summer...
...She's the kind of Republican who votes with Clinton on partial-birth abortion...
...Maybe, during pre-game warmups, before I arrived, Ficker had shouted that Ewing was smart, serious, and good with words...
...I thought about this for a moment...
...By eleven o'clock the night of the election, it was apparent that, once again, every one of my votes— even the ones for school board— had come a cropper...
...While the rest of the family soundly slept, I fished E.J.'s morning column out of the recycle bin and reread it...
...This time, though, for some reason, it made me want to puke...
...Two fifth graders, Nick said...
...I first became aware of Robin Ficker, the amendment's author, in 1986 at a Washington Bullets basketball game...
...Tally ho...
...That brought him up short...
...On Election Day, I thought I could begin to return the favor...
...Democrats suck," my beloved first child announced one afternoon about a month ago...
...Five rows in front of me was Ficker...
...In three successive elections since 1988, I had not cast a single successful ballot, even for school board...
...So I voted for Dole...
...It didn't work...
...It wasn't a fair description of me...
...I let him practice staying home on the real Election Day and went off to vote on my own...
...It was everything I remembered: intelligent, responsible, well-written...
...All game long, through a megaphone, he hollered that New York Knicks center Patrick Ewing was an ape...
...Dionne's Election Day Washington Post column was positively Whitmanesque, an evocation of the envelope-stuffing communitarian politics of his Massachusetts childhood...
...Ewing is seven feet tall and must weigh three million pounds...
...Big deal, I told myself last Tuesday morning, the Washington Post sitting in my lap...
...No, they don't, I said levelly, and mind your tongue...
...I was, and am, grateful for the courtesy...
...It's depressing, being a complete and constant loser...
...Then I dumped all over him...
...Mom's a Democrat, I sternly reminded him...
...I don't mind saying I think Bill Clinton is smart, serious, and good with words...
...It's just that I also think he's a rat-faced liar and a wretched president...
...He likes Ross Perot because "he's crazy and he has big ears...
...And if there are no taxes, there'll be no street lights...
...But if I took Ollie to the polls, I figured, I'd have to take his older brother, Nicholas, too...
...And Nick, I have concluded, is already dangerously overexposed to politics...
...Bad luck: In August, at the Republican national convention in San Diego, we were introduced...
...It was (I thought) a tough review, and I added Dionne to the growing list of people I've criticized in print—and therefore fear meeting face to face...
...And worse...
...See, Libertarians don't believe in taxes...
...A couple of weeks later, Nick came home with the results of his elementary school's mock presidential election...
...First off, for their own good, I had to leave the kids behind...
...All for naught...
...They care about pocketbook issues, not social ones...
...But I still want a Sub-Zero refrigerator as much as the next guy, so I voted for the tax-cutting "Ficker Amendment" to our county's charter...
...I was seated 10 rows back from the visiting bench...
...When I reviewed his latest book in these pages back in March, I pointed out that he is smart, serious, and good with words...
...Harry Browne, the Libertarian, got 3. I was suspicious...
...My 4-year-old, Oliver, has unformed politics...
...Clinton beat Dole, 365 to 75...
...A change in tax rates, they understand, might mean the crucial difference between remodeling your kitchen with a $3,500 Sub-Zero refrigerator and just scraping by...
...Who voted for Browne, I wondered...
...Casting an American ballot is inherently good, he reminded me...
...He's only 8 years old, and more like me than I am...
...If my son is going to have thuggish, blockheaded political opinions, let him go get some of his own...
Vol. 2 • November 1996 • No. 10
