Like most Americans, I have been following the election on the edge of my seat. As many of you do, I have an interest in the Presidential, Senatorial and Congressional records. In Minnesota there is a Constitutional Amendment to consider. There are judges, county commissioners, water commissioners and there are other national races worth watching as well.
I can get really wrapped up and overwhelmed by the process. Negative ads telling me to “Call Mergatroid Tell him not to consume the flesh of dead babies” and “Mergatroid, Communist, Anti-American and a baby eater.” The saturation of these ads can lead to all-consuming behavior.
In 2004 I got very involved in Move On. In 2008 I haven’t done as much, but I follow all of the news sites, the political sites, even some of the sites I don’t agree with. I listen to political podcasts and I get RSS feeds from it all several times a day. This, along with some discomfort in my marriage has led to a stiffness. I hold my stomach in throughout the day, tightening my neck and shoulders. When I say I find things “funny and unbelievable” I am also tightening up inside.
It reminds me of the description of how many people became tight and closed up after 9-11. There were therapists on television telling people to turn the television off and take a walk.
Many of you will laugh and say “of course.” This doesn’t even merit a post, let alone a digg. In any case, I find it useful. A person recently told me to post more positive and consider that change can be productive. I haven’t updated in some time, consider this a step forward.
I am seeing this stiffness in how I relate to the world. The other day someone I work with gave me a simple practice called The Three Breaths.
The meditation is simple, when one is feeling stressed out one should simply observe the stress and be present with it for the length of three full breaths. The process slows one down and makes one think about the source of the tension.
There are 5 days left until we all go to a neighborhood polling place. In that time we will be overwhelmed with imagery that accuses and deifies people who are looking to serve in government. When it is over, there will be some changes, some of them even remarkable, some heart-breaking. In the end, we need to take care of ourselves, learn to filter out the noise and breath.
My recipe for you, or anyone suffering from too much campaign is to not follow the news too closely, not listen to the ads. Don’t call Mergatroid…he’s not listening anyway. Instead take a walk, notice the change of season and breath.
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Recipe for a Democratic Loss(Can you guess the candidate I am referring to?):
1. Win your party’s nomination by being a fighter. Come out swinging and support the progressive side of your party as well as a larger block of the public that wants to see things become better.
2. As soon as you gain your party’s nomination go to the center. Expect many more votes in this nebulous space that isn’t the GOP right, isn’t the progressive left but strongly resembles either a more careful and less principled perspective. The belief that the voters are in this middle place is only part of the problem….
3. Accept the republican frame… ’nuff said.
4. Allow the other side to get in enough shots that make you seem smaller, weaker and more able to be pushed around.
5. Associate you with others that might have done wrong.
6. Associate you with things you may have said that were clearly ridiculous or outrageous. Let the media have the story and spend time carefully crafting a response which is truthful, heartfelt and dull.
7. Let the other side change the argument to something trivial.
8. Hire a bunch of advisers that make your speeches much less you and much more what the voters want (f/ex…become stiffer, be seen with a hunting rifle, how about riding in a tank? How about dropping your g’s when you talk…voters love this).
9. When being interviewed in a disrespectful way clearly don’t sink to their level. Why would you want to yell back “you have a lot of nerve to play the guilty by association game….after you associated me with being a muslim because I went to school in a muslim country.” That would be playing their game. You should just be presidential and above it, and smile. No on watches this stuff anyways.
10. Let the debate devolve into who would be a better beer buddy.
And the Answer is: Mondale, Dukakis, Gore, Kerry and now, unfortunately….Obama.
It sickens me, but I am losing my faith in the inevitability of a 2008 Obama Presidency.