Approaching the WI Primary

In just 20 days, Wisconsin voters will officially enter the 2008 political marathon, and I couldn’t be more befuddled or excited. I must confess, here, that I was a kid who couldn't wait to turn 18 just so I could register to vote, and I am still fired with that same wide-eyed energy when it comes to U.S. politics. As a republican—and, frankly, what feels like the token and oft misunderstood republican in academe—all I can think of is an old fight song that we used to sing to taunt the opposing—or, when awful circumstances warranted, our own—football team:

We’ll take a neck from some ol’ bottle!
We’ll take an arm from some ol’ chair!
We’ll take a leg from some ol’ table!
and from a horse we’ll take some hair [we’ll-take-some-hair].
And then we’ll put them all together
with a little string and glue–oou–ooou!
And we’ll get more action from a gosh-darn dummy
than we’ll ever get from you–oou–ooou!

Ah, to have a Build-A-Candidate Workshop! To make a composite candidate from all the best qualities from the field: a dash of McCain’s record for collaborating across the aisle, a pinch of Romney’s organizational leadership record, a smidgen of Huckabee’s integrity, a nip of Giuliani’s chutzpah and support for the nation’s servicemen and women, and several ladles of Paul’s grasp for the constitution and the (limited) role of the federal government delineated therein—what a project!

Together, these candidates (though Giuliani is now officially out) make an interesting collage, one that communicates a great deal about the complex and somewhat metamorphic identity of the republican party at present (I’ll tackle that topic another time and in another place, perhaps). While the idea of creating the übercandidate selected from the best qualities each has to offer is perhaps a wistful or amusing aside, in truth politics is always—has always been—about the human condition—which is fallible, vulnerable, contradictory, and often inconsistent. It is also precisely what makes it possible to learn, to defend that which must be defended and to eliminate that which is unjust, and to collaborate, deliberate, and negotiate across difference; it is what affords one the ability to hope, to dream. The trouble is, for me, what am I willing to concede to the realm of ‘let’s agree to disagree’ and what positions (and records) among the candidates are, for me, deal-breakers?

At this point in history when we as a people approach such a unique and nearly unprecedented presidential election, and in this precise moment and mood that I write, I am inclined to think that the best hope for our country—the very best possible spur and curb—is to see the parties come together and share the ticket: a republican and a democrat coming together to share the responsibility of leading the country from within the executive branch. I’m not a political scientist, perhaps obviously, and I suspect the implications of such a move could be . . . complex to say the least. But since I can’t use the Build-A-Bear—er, Candidate—approach (and even if such a thing were possible could we as an American constituency ever actually agree as to what qualities were ‘best’ anyway?), it might be interesting, for just a moment, to imagine where together, say, Senators Obama (for whom I have a great deal of respect for his apparent temperance) and McCain could take the country.