15 January 2008

Dinosaurs



It is cold again, and all's right with the world. The January thaw has drifted away and chill radiates from the glass and penetrates all the way to my desk, precisely halfway across the room. I could either turn up the heat, or don additional clothing.

I choose to do neither, since the goose-bumps on my skin make me feel alive, and less like some ancient lizard.

The coat today, for sure, since I will be traveling across the county line to a business social event, which is an oxymoron, like Military Intelligence.

Michigan, my Michigan, has blipped the news. I hear little about the situation back in the state that will always be home, outside the weekly calls to the little town by the Bay.

The folks are OK, by the way, thanks for asking. It is troubling to hear that so many are not. The unemployment is the highest in the nation, the housing prices have collapsed, and the failing industrial economy is apparently all anyone can speak about.

At least it seems that way to the media people who have arrived for three days to provide comprehensive coverage before flying off to report on some other slice of the hinterland. I had always thought that my destiny would somehow be connected to Michigan, and on retirement from the Naval Service would walk inland towards Lansing with an oar on my shoulder until some landsman asked me what it was.

Then I could stop and be content. I might still wind up in the land of the Wolverines, though it seems unlikely. There are so many entanglements here in Washington that generate a continuing requirement for steady work.

Steady work is what tugged the Romney clan in and out of Michigan. George Romney was a giant in the automobile industry, a visionary who saw the small fuel-efficient car as the coming thing. He decried the “gas-guzzling Dinosaurs” the Big Three were producing.

He carried a little dinosaur doll in his briefcase that he waved as a prop at lunchtime speeches. He mocked the tail-fins and the massive sheet-metal beasts on wheels. He gathered a group of Bright Young Men together to help design and produce them at American Motors, which had no trace of irony in its name. That is how my Dad came to work for him, helping St. George slay dragons and dinosaurs.

It proved to be too distant a vision, though we are living it now. George was also a visionary in civil life, and he became involved in the fight to update the Michigan constitution. The Constitutional Convention of 1963 was a watershed in state history, reforming the Executive and Legislative branches, and empowering the urban centers.

George's son Mitt is counting on the hoopla of his return to the state of his birth to give him a victory. In that, he is relying on the service of his father, and the lingering good will to give him a necessary jolt. Ominously, from what the pollsters say, he is even with John McCain and the Rev. Huckabee breathing down both their necks.

The Michigan primary is an anomaly in a season of anomalies. Only votes in the Republican column will count, since the Democratic national Committee has withdrawn their sanction for the Democratic contest. It seems the desire of the Michigan Dems to move the election up to the middle of January disrupted the carefully orchestrated scheme to balance the impact of Iowa and New Hampshire with Nevada, a western state with a large Hispanic population.

It seems to me that Bill Richardson should have hung on at least for this one, since he is a Western Governor, and half-Mexican in heritage. The acrimony between the Democrats over race and sex is an ugly preview of how both of their campaigns could implode.

Perhaps Bill, and Al Gore, for that matter, prefer the sidelines at this juncture. They could both emerge, tanned, rested and ready later in the year. With nearly eleven months to go, there is so much ugliness we have yet to cover.

The people of Michigan are partly disenfranchised in that regard. With nothing on the Democratic ballot except Hillary, there is all the incentive in the world for them to vote for the Republican candidates. There is no party test for participation in the primary election, and it is a free-for-all, just like the real thing.

Some voters have announced their intention of voting for the weakest of the Republicans in order to bolster the fortunes of a likely loser, which is a cynical and dangerous strategy. What are the consequences of Free Choice voting for Right to Life? It boggles the mind, particularly in light of the fact that the Democratic frontrunners have the prospect of melting each other in the white-hot passion of race and sex.

Of course, if you have had your vote taken away in favor of a state almost wholly owned by the Federal Government and the Hospitality Industry, I would be cranky, and unpredictable, too. Arguably, my Michigan is the victim of the combined folly of the dinosaurs and dragons: Big Labor, Big Capital, Big NAFTA and Big China.

Why not vote in petulance? That is likely to be the outcome of the Big Election that seems so far away. If I were back home, I would probably write in someone in that I respected.

Mitt's Dad George would be at the top of my list.

Copyright 2008 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

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