Passion, What?

Yesterday we heard that the current medical residents in Kenya were evacuated due to the violence and that our departure is on hold for the moment. Apparently this happened the last time elections were held, but the rioting was short lived. I suppose this is a good thing as we have not bought our plane tickets yet and J pointed out that the prices should be tumbling downward like a drunk snowboarder on an avalanche.

In the meantime on the other side of the world, the population has quadrupled in Iowa. Places like Winterset are now getting their 15 minutes of fame as candidates pull all nighters and eat grandma's pot roast to show how down home they are...for about 10 minutes until they have to get back on the road again. I have a very old and dear friend of mine who is the regional deputy for one of the candidates campaign. I can't imagine what his life has been like in the past few days. Every time I see a news report I just keep looking for my friend in the background.

My guilty dark side pleasure is actually watching and participating in politics. I was a poli sci major. This only occurred by default as I was sucking in my chemistry classes and had a really bad love triangle I was avoiding at the time. I came back from a political internship in D.C. and marched up to the registrars office to declare whatever I had the most credits in as my major. It worked out for the best as I couldn't believe I got college credit for staying up late making lawn signs, getting drunk at political fund raisers, and making speeches on behalf of my candidates at local senior centers. It was a total blast. The thing about poli sci is that the pretentious adrenaline is contagious. I am usually rather aloof when it comes to day to day politics, but when its presidential election time I'm wishing I lived in Estherville, Iowa or even Nashua, New Hampshire. It seems that in those small places, the power of the people and potential of change is possible. THAT is what gets me every time.

The thing that I hate about politics is that it seems a bit fake in our country. When our election results were dubious in 2000 no one took to the streets to riot like they have in Kenya. Instead we sat glued to the television watching the spin doctors work their magic and the news stations um'd and ah'd backing their way out of being preemptive fortune tellers. Granted, we didn't have genocide allegations like Kenya. But truly, where is our passion and our spirit?

Perhaps I'm romanticising the whole thing too much. My friend, weary from the campaign trail, once told me that Iowa voters were a bit entitled and wouldn't pledge their caucus power unless they saw the candidate IN PERSON AT LEAST TWICE. I come from States where the candidates don't even bother showing up because it is not worth their time and effort because its a sure thing for the other party. That is just sad. My friend is right though. On CBS news last night I watched a reporter asked how many times the candidates had been through his town. He had no problems mentioning that Obama had shown up the most, Edwards and Clinton were tied for second. Nothing was said about the candidates message when they were there.

I mourn the loss of passion that our country displays for their democracy. Our government insights wars based on this principle but yet no one will stand on our own soil and protect it. We treat it like its a intangible ideal or a machine that runs by itself. We are on uncharted ground with a woman and an African American are running and it is exciting.

Gone are the days when people will vote based on the message of the candidate like when Lincoln stood on the platform of his train in downtown Indianapolis (there is a plaque to memorialize this.) Instead we now vote on gender, race, how many children, and what seems to be most important in our "separation" of church and state: religion. In Iowa today, the Democrats have a battle of Gender vs. Race and the Republicans have a battle of Evangelical vs. Mormon.

Charles Krauthammer wrote: Huckabee is running a very effective ad in Iowa about religion. “Faith doesn’t just influence me,” he says on camera, “it really defines me.” The ad then hails him as a “Christian leader.”

This alone makes me want to vomit just in case you were wondering.