The Donkey in my Bed
I’m on a plane headed to my home town - Orlando.
You’d think a place built on the guise of amusement would be a fun
place to visit. It’s really not though. In the Salt Lake airport’s
‘Books ‘n’ stuff’ I just picked up a rolling stone
to find Orlando described as “a scorching-hot paved inland archipelago
of garish shopping malls and stadium-size steel-and-glass Baptist churches,
… and an entire economy organized around monstrous temples to fake
experience.” I wouldn’t put it quite that way, but you get
the picture.
When I arrive home tonight there will be a 37 year-old bald man in my
bed. My parents tell me he’s from Tennessee, that he’s very
nice, and hardly ever bothers them. They’ve sent me to his website
so I can learn more about him. His name is John Rutherford and he’s
a paid political strategist for moveon.org. He is charged with stirring
up some 100,000 Democratic unlikely voters in Central Florida and getting
them to the (hopefully functioning) ballot boxes next week. His job, my
parents say, is to save the day.
You’ll be glad to know, if you’re one of the many young people
who have given money to moveon.org, that they do not pay for such extravagances
as hotel rooms. Instead they rely on interested, politically active moms
with empty beds and extra fridge space. I think all parents should have
a paid political operative to fill the empty nest, it’s healthy.
They say he is not at all creepy, but he is sleeping in my bed.
John Rutherford is responsible for ‘getting out the (lower class/female/black)
vote’ in Central Florida, if it is anywhere near as close as it
was last year, those hundred thousand votes will decided the election.
But it really doesn’t bother me that many Democrats seem to prefer
to play Nintendo on election days. If they felt strongly about politics,
they would find their way to the polls. Frankly, I don’t want apathetic,
poorly informed people deciding the fate of the country, that just sounds
scary.
Unfortunately I recently discovered that poorly informed people might
very well decide the future of America on November 2nd. And so I am afraid.
A majority of Bush voters believe that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction
and close ties to al Qaeda before the war. A majority of Bush supporters
believe Bush is in favor of the International Criminal Court, the Kyoto
agreement, the nuclear test ban treaty, and environmental regulations
on trade agreements. Bush supports none of those things, but the majority
of people who will vote for him believe he does. The majority of Bush
supporters believe the rest of the world was in favor of our invasion
of Iraq. They were not.
Either these people have been deceived, or they simply find it impossible
to believe the leader who brought us through 9/11 could have made mistakes,
or hold opinions contrary to their own beliefs.
If so many people actually don’t believe in the policies of George
Bush, I am fascinated that John Rutherford is not charged with simply
making sure folks who agree with the policies of John Kerry actually vote
for John Kerry.
Media spin, the ubiquity of affective advertising, and the fear of another
attack is keeping many from noticing that the choice is clearer than it
has been in decades. This couldn’t be a better time to have a Democratic
political operative in one’s bed. When he rises from my bed tomorrow
morning, I’ll ask him: “Instead of mobilizing people who don’t
care enough to vote, might it be more important that the people who do
care vote according to reality?” Because right now, they’re
not.
For a full year I wrote a weekly column for a daily paper in Boulder CO. I wrote about being young, poor and green, and the column was widely loved throughout the city. It remains one of the most rewarding things I've ever done.
If you've got some time on your hands...check 'em out.
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