Boise News

Remember when

Election Eve Colors: Red, Blue, Green

By Jill Kuraitis, Unfiltered 11-06-06

Guest Opinion by Tom von Alten

Jim Lehrer's News Hour rolled out a couple of classics this evening for the pontification segment, former Senate majority leader Tom Daschle and former House majority leader Dick Armey. You can tell these guys aren't tied into the real campaigns, because their opening statements were so half-hearted and uninformed. Daschle thinks the Dems will pick up 25 to 30 seats; Armey lightly guffawed that he didn't think it would be that big a majority.

Well Dick, a majority will be huge, no matter how few seats make it so.

I will say that both these guys look like they're enjoying their retirement. So much so, that they're not keeping up with current events like they used to. "Cut and run" vs. "Stay the course"? That is so last week.

They looked like former World Wrestling Federation champions, reliving past glory, as the warm, rapt attention they gave while the other guy was talking practically dripped off the screen. Gosh Tom, remember when? Gee Dick, wasn't it grand?

They came from a more glorious era, when U.S. politics was a jolly contest between two giant parties jockeying for the best deck chair on a ship being floated ever higher by a rising tide. The Republicans still in power insist that their Ship of State is unsinkable, as long as the Defeatocrats are kept below decks. The Democrats are actually looking out the portholes rather than at the charts up on the bridge, and they're starting to ask pointed questions about those very large chunks of ice that they're seeing more and more of.

Robert Wrigley got the color segment, talking from my old stomping grounds on Moscow Mountain, and Latah County, reading poetry about voting day, out in the woods. Just about made me cry, it was so sweet; his dog happily parked at his feet while he read, so far from the troubles of the world.




Tom von Alten's regular blog is Fort Boise.

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