So Many People, So Little....

David Burnett is available for a Super Bowl party. He wanted me to share that with you because he doesn’t want to beg but we haven’t gotten any invitations yet. Actually we haven’t gotten invited to a Super Bowl party for years. We used to have one but, for whatever reason, things change and we don’t anymore. Since we don’t ever know where we are going to be and we are usually pretty flexible, all invitations are welcome.

I’m not going to comment on the the President’s State of the Union because I’m still trying to figure out what he meant by “We’re not in the war we entered to but we need to fight the war we’re in.” Why? It’s like when I was in high school and my mother would say, “I’m not going to answer the question you asked, I would rather answer the question I wanted you to ask.” I had pretty much the same reaction. “What the hell are you talking about!!!”

There are about fifteen people who have announced that they want to be the next President of the United States of America. Why is it that I can’t get past the song from the musical ”Hair” where the character says he wants to be the President of the United States of love. What ever happened to those aspirations for an aspirant?

The candidates all sound pretty much the same and they all did web announcements in different venues. I am still confused by Hillary’s reference to the “promise of America” which I never understood when Bill Clinton used it, except it sounded so nice. Words like promise, success, truth, better, together, new (even no ‘new’ taxes) are words that supposedly trigger positive images for the voter. But they have different meanings because, as my old professors used to say, meanings are in people not in words – and that’s what candidates are counting on.

The last Presidential cycle brought us fundraising on line, Move On, Meet Up, and the rise of the 327 organization—which was a way to get around PAC donations. In 1976 I was involved with WACPAC—the Whimsical Alternative Coalition Political Action Committee. And believe it or not we raised money, got Larry King involved and gave money to candidates who were silly but had smart ideas—I think.

I am always interested in new ways to get around the old laws with regard to fundraising and organizing. But “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it,” often comes to mind. Here’s what I think we learned in trying to outsmart the rules and the system. People like being involved with other people. In the “old” days, we went on the road and attempted to touch every voter we saw. Sometimes we set up events in order to maximize the meet but it didn’t matter. The idea was to communicate in person with another human being. The idea of the power of the internet and technology has changed that a bit. But I must say, I hate it when I get an automated call from a candidate and I like it even less when I receive an internet note about how important I am. It’s kind of like receiving a birthday or holiday ‘e-card’. All it says to me is, “I was thinking about you but not that much or it was really last minute. Would I rather be acknowledged or forgotten? Well, I’m glad people think of me but I wish they would put themselves out with a $2 card, a 39 cent stamp, and a walk to the post office rather than a click. And what does this have to do with political campaigns? Nothing, but our anniversary is coming up and I’m being proactive.

Speaking of our anniversary, when we decided, after five years, that we wanted to make a life long commitment we also decided to do it within about three weeks because we thought if we waited longer we would talk each other out of it. We decided the week following our engagement announcement was too soon. We had plans for the second week. And the week that followed the second weekend was the Super Bowl – And we had been invited to a party we didn’t want to miss. We’re not begging, We’re just sayin...Iris