And so, the excitement of the fall political campaigns begins.
Although, “excitement” might not be the right word to characterize events more precisely described as turgid with occasional interludes of venomous, petty and inaccurate.
Sort of like golf – without the fresh air.
Oh wait, I forgot self-serving.
Still sounds like golf.
If my enhanced description of the run-up to the November election (admittedly, made up for the sole purpose of sucking you into reading this column) strays from the truth, I’m hardly alone in this abuse of the English language. A comparison with the rhetoric surrounding the average gubernatorial campaign leaves my modest meandering away from the realm of the factual looking like holy writ engraved on tablets.
Let’s start with the latest TV ad from the Republican Governors Association in support of Gov. Paul LePage. The 60-second spot finishes with a flourish by claiming, “He’s unique, like Maine.”
According to my dictionary, “unique” means “existing as the only one; single; solitary in type or characteristics.” The word is frequently misused by boneheads who mean “unusual,” which LePage certainly is (unusual, not a bonehead). But his agenda is almost entirely derived from national conservative groups, who’ve drafted similar measures in many states. His speaking style, described in the ad as “Blunt, honest,” is comparable to comments one hears in bars toward the end of happy hour.
There’s also the matter of his being unique “like Maine.” If the governor and the state are alike in their uniqueness, then by definition neither is unique. And if the copywriters meant that LePage and Maine are unique in different ways, that wouldn’t necessarily indicate they’re good matches for each other. Michelangelo’s Pieta and North Korean architecture are both unique, but nobody has ever suggested putting one anywhere near the other.
The nonsense about Maine being unique isn’t unique to LePage’s supporters. This pandering to our sense of ourselves as special is a staple of political blather. Democrat Mike (Lots Of People Mistake Me For Libby Mitchell) Michaud has buckets of it in a video posted on his campaign website.
“Mainers are very hard-working,” Michaud claims, “very friendly, they care about their neighbors. Whether it’s a farmer in Aroostook County, a lobsterman on the coast, someone who’s punching a time clock in the mill, they’re willing to step up to the plate to help someone in need.”
Unless those folks are immigrants; welfare recipients; or members of racial, sexual or religious minorities – in which cases Mainers are as likely as Nebraskans, Californians or Mississippians to tell those seeking alms to pound sand.
We like being flattered about how morally superior we are, but when the real world intrudes, we rarely measure up to these delusions.
Independent Eliot Cutler is no less likely than LePage and Michaud to engage in the practice of over-inflating our importance. On Cutler’s website, he states, “The latent power of the Maine brand is extraordinary; there are a few states that are mythic, and Maine is one of them.”
Others include Atlantis, Brigadoon and Hell. Maine has more in common with some of those than others.
Strangely, this predilection for brown-nosing is less prevalent among candidates for federal offices. Some, such as Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, Democratic U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree and Democratic 2nd Congressional District candidate Emily Cain, rarely resort to kissing voters’ posteriors. Others, such as GOP 2nd District nominee Bruce Poliquin, 1st District Republican hopeful Isaac Misiuk and Democratic Senate candidate Shenna Bellows, can be seen as either refreshingly realistic or downright negative.
“Maine’s 2nd Congressional District is stuck in high unemployment and too many part-time jobs,” said Poliquin on his website. “An increasing number of our young families, many burdened with college debt, leave for better opportunities elsewhere. Those who remain are increasingly dependent on government programs to get by.”
According to his website, Misiuk “understands the crippling student debt and limited job prospects are hurting the American dream, which we are told to strive for as children.”
“A lack of Internet and cell phone access impedes economic growth in our rural communities,” Bellows complains on her site. “Small businesses comprise 60% of Maine’s jobs, but too often, it is difficult or impossible for small business owners to access the capital they need to start up.”
Poliquin and Misiuk accuse Democrats in Congress and the White House of being responsible for this mess, while Bellows puts it on the entrenched incumbent she’s opposing. So their less-than-rosy assessments are really a reverse form of humoring their potential constituents by pretending that whatever’s wrong with Maine isn’t the fault of the swell people who live here.
It’s sort of like a golfer blaming the ball.
Smother me with undeserved praise by emailing aldiamon@herniahill.net.
Enjoyable.
Unlike our patronizing political brethren, you put this shot right down the middle of the fairway Al.
Harvey Penick famously once wrote: “… the Woods are full of long drives.”
Maine’s woods are no exception.
What’s wrong with blaming the ball?
Since the column begins and ends with golf, I was expecting at least a little about those seeking the highest federal office, although it’s much too early – for us, evidently not for the seekers.
Better to play golf than to conspire with a cabal of draft dodgers to send hundreds of thousands of our best and brightest young folks to be killed and maimed in pointless wars. They had the guts to put their names on their enlistment papers and their lives on the line. Who are you?
Blaming the ball? My grandmother was a Maine country girl, and a natural and well-known crack shot, though she probably did very little shooting. One day a neighbor brought a .22 rifle he’d bought to my grandparents’ farm, and asked my grandfather why he couldn’t hit anything with it. My grandfather asked my grandmother to come outside, walked over to a telephone pole about 100 feet away, and put a penny up on it. He put a shell in the gun and gave it to my grandmother, and asked her to see if she could hit the penny, which she did. He passed the gun back to the owner and said, “It ain’t the gun!” As far as I can remember, none of us men in the family, who loved to hunt and target shoot, ever beat her at target shooting.
-> david firsching: Those young folks are still putting their names and lives where their mouths are. Write a letter about cabals and the draft and wars, past and ongoing, and we’ll have a lively discussion. Meanwhile, …
Golf is a good walk spoiled.
~ Mark Twain
September and October in Maine in an election year are an environmentalist’s nightmare, pondering all the trees killed and maimed to produce signs ignored by everyone.
The Messiah’s “Presidency” is like HIS golf game, an overly long series of bad lies!
Echoing david firsching in the past, ‘what’s wrong with’ you, Arnold P? Your initial comments were a fitting enough response to this particular column. Guess you couldn’t be “unique” without slamming Pres. Obama by being “venomous, petty and inaccurate.”
“…whatever’s wrong with Maine isn’t the fault of the swell people who live here.” A particularly insightful remark, Al!
Turgidity:
Excessively ornate or complex in style or language; grandiloquent: turgid prose. 2. Swollen or distended, as from a fluid; bloated: a turgid bladder; turgid veins.
So…. How does Al mean this? I wouldn’t categorize any of our current crop of candidates as being excessively ornate in style or language. Though I attended a rally for Michaud the other night and found him to be a more eloquent than I had expected. I certainly would not classify Governor Le Page’s speech as such, though his appearance hints somewhat at the second definition of the word.
I should think we Mainers are more like the inhabitants of Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegon, where the children are all above average.
How can two people have a lively discussion if one hides his (or her) identity. I have found that if someone is ashamed of their name or their words ,there is ample cause for their shame.
David Firsching:
‘Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What’s Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
And for that name which is no part of thee
Take all myself.
William Shakespeare
@Actual News: Actually, some 58 to 62% of the American People disapprove of Obama’s performance, and there’s only one reason the numbers aren’t much higher. You don’t have to like it, and I couldn’t care less about your biased opinion, or Firsching’s. My comment was very mild compared to yours. Here’s looking forward to November. Doubt you’ll get much enjoyment from it! I’m ok with that.
Arnold P., regarding your statement about the % of Americans’ disapproval of Obama’s performance, what’s that “only one reason the numbers aren’t much higher.” ?
Yes, I agree that we are all looking forward to November.
You will be disappointed in both instances. There is no point in answering a question when everyone knows the correct answer. Denial or protests do not change facts. Few if any Presidents have persisted in policies or programs the American people strongly disapproved. This one has, Obamacare, “amnesty”, NSA and IRS abuses, releasing the Worst of the Worst terrorists, etc. The American people normally show their disapproval at the ballot box, and since they can’t vote against Obama this time, the ones who disapprove will take it out on those politicians who have supported him. As his approval ratings have gone down greatly since the 2010 thrashing, and the above disappointments have occurred since then, and the major national polls and Nate Silver say Democrats will lose the Senate this time, I believe it. You can have Hope until November, but then that will Change! I look forward to it. As to your apparent belief that I would be afraid to answer your question, that you were somehow being clever to ask it, you were not, I have nothing to gain OR lose by it. Just another elephant in the room. Let’s just continue to pretend it’s not there, instead.