The Most Important Election in History, again

Below is my column from the November 2016 issue of the Sturbridge Times Magazine.  

The Most Important Election in History, again

By Richard Morchoe

On November 8th, America goes to the polls to elect a president.  On Long Hill, we have found the whole exercise depressing.  It is not just the rancor of the campaign that has been disheartening.  Rather, what is daunting has been the hopeless nature of the debates.

In truth, the meetings between the two candidates are not even close to debates.  A debate is two sides expressing views on a question.  In a formal debate, there would be an affirmative and a negative.  Each side makes opening statements that are rebutted in closing remarks.  When I was a debater back in high school, in the Jurassic era, the teams would question each other midway through the contest.

The Lincoln-Douglas debates are American history lore.  Though for a senatorial contest, the meetings could be considered a prelude to the 1860 presidential election.  The two candidates spoke for hours and the audience’s attention never wavered.  Such events could never happen today.  Our attention spans started to decline with the age of television.  In the internet era, it will not be long before we cannot concentrate on anything longer than a few nanoseconds.

The modern era of presidential debates began with the 1960 election.  Having seen it as a ten-year-old, I remember it more for the structure.   Two of the four clashes had eight-minute opening statements by both men.  After that, they were questioned by a panel with two and a half minutes to answer and one and a half for rebuttal.  Thereupon, each man would get a three-minute closing statement.

The videos and transcripts are extant and can be viewed online.  To my generation, it was a golden age.  Back then one had to be able to follow arguments and counter arguments as opposed to the steady stream of sound bites.

The current format seems to be copying one of the lower genres of televised entertainment, reality shows.  It should have served Donald Trump well.  He actually was a reality show host and his business has been as much show biz as anything.  During the primaries, he was able to run rings around his opposition.  Now he seems to be floundering.  A true debate might work better as it could force him to be more disciplined.

His problems have helped Hillary Clinton as she was not going to be the warmth candidate.  Also, she has the difficult task of having both to defend and distance herself from the administration.  The former Secretary of State is not the first politician to have to sort of say, “Things are great, but I’ll fix it.”  The Donald should have been able to blow her out of the water, but he is on the defensive.

Instead we have had only charges and countercharges of corruption and skullduggery.  We yield to no one in wanting to believe all of them, but we can’t keep up.  

The partisans of each nominee love to speak of them as near deities.  Having been around the block, the thought that the new duet of demi-gods is even better than the previous set is difficult to swallow.  Somehow, it is hard to picture Donald as Zeus or Hillary as Athena.

At this point in the history of the Republic, one should hesitate to say that the format is not an insult to the intelligence of the viewing public.  If there were truly an outcry, the defects would have long ago been corrected.

The founders feared direct election of the president for reasons that should be evident during the current round.  They foresaw the demagogic agitation.  Their answer was the electoral college.  Each state would get a certain number of electors based on congressional representation.  The state legislatures were to appoint the electors who would then meet and decide on a president and vice president.

Sadly, the system quickly broke down.  The Constitutional Convention did not see the rise of parties.  In the third election, Jefferson and Burr, presidential and vice presidential nominees of the same Party, both received an equal number of votes.  It took 36 ballots in the House of Representatives to decide the issue with much bad blood resulting.

Over time, “reforms” made the system what it is today.  The Electoral College still exists, but it is, however, the popular ballot that decides how the state electors vote.  

James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay, the authors of the Federalist Papers who convinced many that a federal government was a good idea would be disappointed in our seedy carnival of an election.

As the November Sturbridge Times Magazine comes out before the election, we could be brave and make a prediction.  That is not going to happen.  Instead, we want to extend the same solace we take in the event to everyone.  The good news will be that one of them lost.  The bad news is the other won.

Say it ain't so, Mike!

Below is my column as submitted from the March, 2014 Sturbridge Times Magazine, Page 18. It's something odd from moi, showing love to a politician I never voted for.

There is only one thing worse in life than to have one’s heroes exposed as less than noble.  It is a personal disaster to hear that someone you never felt warm and fuzzy about does something that forces a reappraisal.

Sadly, Michael Stanley Dukakis has done that to me.  I could never warm to the man.    It’s part of my class warrior persona.  You always got the feeling that the Duke was talking down to you and telling you that you had to take the bad tasting medicine because it was good for you.

The Duke, on his rise seemed over promoted.  There was the No Fault Auto Insurance that he successfully steered through the General Court.  Was that the panacea as promised?  For all one knows, it might be the best of all possible worlds.  We do still pay a lot for car insurance here.

In his successful run for governor, the bumper stickers read, “Mike Dukakis Should Be Governor.”  The tone of the campaign was that the messiah would relieve us from the scourge of the usual hacks.  The man was almost too good for us.

In his first term, he was celebrated for taking the MBTA to the Corner Office.  If it was an attempt to connect with the common man by an uncommon man, it did not work.  An electorate that had not forgot his broken “lead pipe guarantee” of no tax increase put him on hiatus for a term.

Back in office, he would tout the short-lived improvement in the state economy as the “Massachusetts Miracle.”  He hoped it would get him across the Potomac, but his presidential candidacy in a literal sense “tanked.”

There would be another call for new taxes as he entered the lame duck zone.  The governor would promote the still controversial Big Dig and would leave a bad taste in our region for supporting a prison in New Braintree that smelled of a sweetheart deal.

His ambition was immense, but so was his desire to make a difference.  A controversial English politician who experienced it said, “All political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure, because that is the nature of politics and of human affairs.” True enough, Mike left office unloved and unlamented.

His post-electoral life is sweet.  Few remember that he could not get elected dogcatcher after his last term.  The Duke has his academic sinecure and enjoys the plaudits of his class.

Contrast Dukakis with another Massachusetts pol, the late Congressman John Joseph Moakley.  You remember him.  Well, you probably don't.  He was not flashy and though he had a long career, his congressional accomplishments escape my mind.  His constituents probably don't remember them either.

His big claim to fame was that he defeated Louise Day Hicks.  If you remember her, you are either a politics nerd or you are giving away your age.  She had opposed forced busing when chairwoman of the Boston School Committee.  Louise was crazy enough to think that the idea of putting kids on buses and shipping them off to neighborhoods not their own in an ethnically fractious city was absurd.  She was delusional enough to believe that her opposition could lead to a successful political career.

All the great and good got behind Joe to defeat Hicks' congressional re-election bid.  Joe said nothing.  It was better for him not to.  He won and went on to an extended tenure as a mediocrity in the nation's capital.

I was reminded that he was still alive shortly before his death.  A new federal courthouse was to be named after him.  On WBZ news one morning, I heard it mentioned and one of the solon's flacks was asked about it.  I can never forget his comment, “Joe, in his own humble way, this was the only building he wanted named after him.” 

The John Joseph Moakley United States Courthouse is an ornate architectural monstrosity.  Maybe it's not on the scale of the pyramids, but Joe was no Amenhotep.  When looking at it, one would not say this is the memorial to a humble man.

On January 31 The Boston Globe reported that it was proposed that South Station be named The Governor Michael S. Dukakis Transportation Center at South Station.  No news there.  As noted above, structures are named after public figures.  Usually a man who, in the words of Macbeth,  “struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more.”  There may be a couple of geezers left who remember Maurice Tobin of Tobin Bridge fame, but who the heck is Leonard Zakim of the Zakim Bridge?*

It was Michael Stanley's reaction that shocked me.  He said No.  Had I a pacemaker, the battery would have shorted.  This may not be unprecedented, but who has years to research it?  One should not cavil at the act.  Even if his reasoning might not be mine, it's still a noble sentiment and it pains me to say, a humble gesture.

So Governor Duke, you have my admiration, but I will never forgive you for making me give up my resentment.

*I looked him up once and completely forgot who he was a minute later.  All I remember is that he was, in the words of the late Jerry Williams, “not a bad guy.”