Hey Pols: Change is For Diapers

By Nathaniel Hoffman, 5-12-08

My second daughter was born a few weeks ago.

I wanted her birth to ramp up my enthusiasm for this election season. My journalistic training and general disdain for groups along with an extreme cynicism bred by my involvement in both journalism and groups has kept me from becoming too engaged in elections.

In all honesty, I thought the birth of my daughter would propel me to back Sen. Barack Obama. I always felt like Obama was a guy I might have hung out with in college. Sen. Hillary Clinton was probably a sorority girl (someone Google that, would you) and John McCain was the professor whose theories had all been proven wrong but was still allowed to teach for a few more years.

Before my kid was born I was mad that those were my only three choices.

All of the clambering for Clinton to drop out just highlights the fact that we have so few political choices in this country. What would a five-way race for the president look like, let alone a political convention where candidates still had to make a case for themselves? Or at least where candidates made a few oppositional speeches.

But as a new dad again, all the anger is gone. Rather than ramping up my enthusiasm for politics, our little baby showed me that none of it really matters. She reminded me to take the long view.

We named her Mandela, a politician who took the long view.

By extending my clan of girls, girls that I hope will live right and follow their hearts, I am shifting the power base in Boise, in Idaho, in the United States and in the world.

Procreation is the ultimate political act. Voting, by comparison, is a boring meaningless farce. Democracy itself is a charade when you hold a little baby in your arms and know that the majority be damned, you will do whatever it takes to provide for your kin.

Politicians and voters alike often cite their offspring as a source of inspiration. I thought I would feel the same way as my family grew. But I feel the opposite way. I want to shield my kids from the narrow political discourse in America. To give them more ideological options. I want to be Mandela’s president, courts and congress.

And her free press. And her blogoshpere too.

I would rather change a diaper than listen to any more talk of change. America never changes. American corporations never change. The American government does not change. Only America’s people change.

One birth at a time.

Editor’s note: Nathaniel Hoffman’s weekly blogs are part of NewWest.Net/Politics’ “Diary of a Mad Voter” feature, a group blog, published in partnership with the Denver Post’s Politics West intended give a glimpse into the hearts and minds of several independent-minded voters and thinkers in the Rocky Mountain West in the ‘08 election cycle. For more columns check in with www.newwest.net/madvoter. And for more information on each of the bloggers, click here.