* The post-electionperiod is more than anti-climatic. It is, especially in this state, a merciful relief from negative-ad carpet bombing and disingenuous endorsements. It’s also a reprieve from media over-analysis and all those pundit-and-partisan references to “turnout.”
Speaking of the latter, anyone else grow weary of all those appeals to voters to get out and vote? Especially when they’re not aimed at you. And they don’t just remind and encourage. They beg and shame.
Put it this way, if it takes begging and shaming to get someone to vote, then let’s hope they did stay home and didn’t cancel the vote of those showing up with the right motivation, even though the campaigns tried everyone’s patience.
* Imagine, a society so egalitarian that bloggers can be their own editor, fact-checker, publisher and libel attorney. Wonder if any First-Amendment-enshrining Founding Father saw this one coming?
* Periodically I re-read the Second Amendment. I have my assault-weapons rights and universal background-check reasons. Context matters. Here it is again: “A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”
I still say a good 18th century copy editor could have done wonders with that antecedent-challenged, stilted prose that Ted Nugent and Wayne LaPierre fawn over.
* Working toward less strident, partisan politics seems a long shot in a society comfortable with cherry picking the news analysis that most entertains and validates.
* I see increasing relevance in the late Ernie Kovacs’ definition of television: “A medium, neither rare nor well done.”
* It was sobering to hear Ken Burns’ take on how Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt would fare in today’s media mosh pit. The Roosevelts, asserted Burns, “couldn’t get out of the Iowa caucuses today.”
TR, he said, would have “10 ‘Howard Dean’ moments a day.” As for FDR, “CNN and Fox would be vying for the worst images of him unlocking the braces, the sweat pouring off his brow.” It would be “political poison.”
I wish I could disagree.
* Much was made in the media specifically about voter turnout on the last Sunday before the Nov. 4 election. One prominent example: Duval County’s Dayspring Baptist Church. African-American congregation members were given fans featuring side-by-side photos (“Partners in Progress”) of Charlie Crist and Barack Obama, a list of the county’s early voting sites and free tickets to fish fries proximate to those voting venues. It’s a reminder that nothing’s sacred, including the somewhat hallowed tenet of church and state separation, when it comes to political parties, get-out-the-vote efforts and anticipated photo-finish elections.