Tuesday is mailday, a tradition that I allowed to fall underneath the wave of tradition that took up the last two weeks. Today, it is back. Thanks for all your letters, which I love to receive as wabbitoid47 at yahoo.com. First up is this one:

You’ve been writing about politics a lot lately. The way you’re talking about the presidential race isn’t at all what I expected, since you seem to be a policy wonk. Aren’t you as sick of the horserace crap as I am?

Oh, I’m only sick of the horserace being run badly. If that sounds strange, consider that this stage of the election simply cannot be about policy matters, no matter how much you might want it to be. There simply isn’t time. This is the stage where candidates are building their personal mythologies, the archetypes that communicate who they are and how they will lead in effective bites.

That’s not a product of the media age, but the way our species intuits critical information on how their tribe is organized and made into a cohesive social unit. Shakespeare’s Henry V wasn’t all that much different.

Important policy matters aren’t discussed in this kind of environment, and they never can be. Any candidate has to leave enough wiggle room that they can compromise to build party cohesion later on as the coalition comes together. We’re learning about people, not policy. More importantly, we’re learning about archetypes and which ones people favor. The controlled insider versus the rebel outsider is a very important debate to hold at this early stage. The result is a conclusive one, done in something like a horserace environment.

I wish that the media was a bit more honest about this, and focused on the human element in a way that wasn’t deathly afraid of the emotions and intuitive reflexes involved. The time for in-depth policy analysis has passed, and the time to see how those analyses hit reality is yet to come. We need to enjoy this moment for what it is and be honest about it.

The next letter is typical of many on the idea of writing a memoir:

I think you should write a memoir, but don’t worry if it’s never published. I’ve read many memoirs, and nearly all of them were compelling. What makes the difference is telling the story, which not everyone can do. I think you can, and it sounds like you have a lot of stories to tell. The only thing I worry about is that you’d try to make it sellable and that might ruin it.

Well, thanks for your support Janine (and all the other people that wrote!). I’m working on how I’d put together a memoir right now, and I’ll let you know if it is starting to look like something that both should be told and can be told. The working theme is that as children we are taught that things are supposed to make sense, but in fact those things make far less sense than other things kept far apart from our normal life. The “coming of age” story is one of finding hidden truths, most hidden in plain sight all around us.

I’ll let you know where I go with it.

Like what you see? Hate what you see? Think I’m a total windbag? Send me mail as wabbitoid47 at yahoo.com

A New Start?
This is a supplemental post for Monday, since I want to get a few items of interest out there before the New Hampster primary. My regular post for Monday is here:

http://www.authorsden.com/visit/viewblog.asp?authorid=55121&m=1&y=2008&blogid=27427

One important point that has gone unreported, to my mind, is how unusual this election cycle is. We have not had an election since 1952 where there was no sitting President or Vice-President, which is to say a clear party favorite, running from either party. Consider this list:

Year Democrat Republican
1952 Stevenson Eisenhower
1956 Stevenson Eisenhower (President)
1960 Kennedy Nixon (Vice President)
1964 Johnson (President) Goldwater
1968 Humphrey* (Vice President) Nixon
1972 McGovern Nixon (President)
1976 Carter Ford (President)
1980 Carter (President) Reagan
1984 Mondale Reagan (President)
1988 Dukakis Bush (Vice President)
1992 Clinton Bush (President)
1996 Clinton (President) Dole
2000 Gore (Vice President) Bush
2004 Kerry Bush (President)

* Note that Johnson bowed out in 1968 after New Hampshire

So is this the year that politics is finally untied from all the anchors that keep it in the past? Are we finally going to see the long overdue alignment of our political axis?

http://www.authorsden.com/visit/viewarticle.asp?AuthorID=55121&id=29113

Time will tell. But what we do know is that this is a wide-open year.