Casual
LABASH, MATT
Casual I FEEL HIS CAMPAIGN Perhaps it is unfair, but I've always regarded politicians as I regard lima beans, jazz fusion, and Dr. Phil—as unnecessary evils. For what kind of half-man/half-freak...
...He owns North Beach...
...He's my former brother-in-law, and this year, he ran for clerk of the circuit court of Calvert County, Maryland...
...MATT LABASH...
...I try to be a pal, to buck him up...
...When we get to the Republican election party at the Masonic lodge that night, we are surrounded by cheese...
...At a Giant grocery, as Mike is handing out literature, a surly cashier on smoke break tells us to scram, even though Kathleen Kennedy Townsend had campaigned inside the store just a few weeks pri-or—an injustice conveniently overlooked by the liberal media...
...Likewise, he told the paper that he viewed the paper-pushing clerk's job as a "steppingstone" to becoming county commissioner...
...A realtor and small-business owner—this year's Chamber member of the year—Mike is a respected burgher and compassionate conservative who has made great inroads with female voters by dating roughly half of them...
...Not for long, however...
...With me," Mike answers cheerily, "you pretty much get both...
...I love that our county commissioner David Hale isn't too timid to flash the boldest campaign slogan in America: "Hale Yes...
...Mike nurses his wounds, while I nurse a Budweiser...
...For what kind of half-man/half-freak spends his entire life suppressing his true self to ask strangers to embrace a false one...
...I accidentally moved a couple to get mine in better locations," he confesses, "but after midnight, anything goes...
...But you have to start somewhere, so this Election Day, Mike and I started at the bowling alley, where he picked me up in his Ford Explorer so that we could work the polls in what we liked to call "Road to the White House 2016...
...Around the same time, we began dating a pair of comely sisters...
...But though it's been years since he signed his walking papers, Mike has remained an in-law-at-large, showing up when most needed to help us put up swing sets or install garage-door openers...
...When I follow Mike into an Elks' lodge as he votes, one of the "Benevolent Elks"—obviously living a lie— chases me out, afraid that I'll commit voter fraud...
...In four more, with any luck, they will be "Bent on Michael Benton...
...This year, locals are saying "Hale Yes...
...The least I could do, I figured, was to offer some helpful campaign advice...
...Mike," I cautioned, "This is a campaign—it's no time for honesty...
...The commissioner's race is only four years away, and with all this new name ID, Mike has already settled on a slogan...
...He is the mayor of North Beach...
...While his looks are obviously an asset, he failed to get a photo into the Washington Posts local voter guide...
...Out in the hall, we sit dejected next to an electric chair-lift used by weak-bladdered Masons...
...One sister is now my wife...
...The election results pour in, and precinct by precinct, Mike is getting smoked...
...I always love the sweaty desperation of small, local elections...
...Mike's best poll-workers—his parents—get lost, and then go home...
...But he's still in a dogfight...
...But our struggling last-minute campaign push becomes a little much even for me...
...Mike," I wince, surveying his mustard yellow signs at a polling place, "Colorologists say yellow is associated with sickness or alarm...
...Nobody goes around saying, "As clerk of the court goes, so goes the registrar of wills...
...I tell him it doesn't matter until his hometown of North Beach comes in...
...But the North Beach returns come in, and he's still behind...
...I love when the Joan Jones for School Board sign mistakenly bears quotation marks around "elect"—as if Joan is being facetious about the whole endeavor...
...I wouldn't even think of going to North Beach without his permission...
...There is cheese on celery and cheese on crackers, solid cheese, liquid cheese, and some combination of both...
...The clerk's race is not a sexy one, not a bellwether...
...A former Marine with nearly superhuman physical strength (he once ripped a gear shift out of a floor in the normal course of driving), Mike has always had a bull-in-the-china-shop quality, which he tempers with charm and good looks (he was voted Northern High School's "Best Looking, 1984"—his only prior political experience...
...Or actually, I already knew him...
...But then I met Mike Benton...
...He is pleased with his signs' prime positions, since he didn't plant them until the wee hours the night before...
...Besides writers, I mean...
...I just want it to be over," he says, and it pretty much is...
...I first met Mike in a college human sexuality course, and we formed the indissoluble bond men share when listening to 20-year-old coeds talk about the Grafenberg spot...
...The other is now his ex-wife...
Vol. 8 • November 2002 • No. 10
