Vic Socotra

03 November 2006

Local Politics

Thomas P. “Tip” O'Neil, famed Democratic Speaker of the House of Representatives, once observed that “All politics is local." He was explaining how the concerns of towns and cities around the country affect the actions of the Congress here in Washington, D.C., my adopted home town.

Another fine observation came from Chris Matthews, who was a Democratic operative before he became the host of “Hardball” on cable television. He said when he was a young staffer on the Hill, recently returned from the Peace Corps, that his Congressman leaned over one day, and told him the key to politics was to “take the smallest thing back home, and make it the biggest thing.”

That is why we have all this nonsense about burning the flag, and gay marriage. People seem to feel strongly about them, and yet they dwindle to insignificance alongside the real looming issues that ought to have us running out in the streets in panic.

Just this week the Brits informed us that the temperature of the globe will go up 4 degrees in the next century, unless something changes, and the cost is going to be extraordinary in life and cash.

Yesterday, a study reported that trends identified in Japanese fishing records indicate the oceans will be barren by 2048.

Both were reported in the news this morning, which is good, but the lead story was about some preacher who apparently has had a cozy homosexual relationship while mounting a public campaign against gay marriage.

It is all local politics, I suppose, since the evangelical community is supporting legislation all over the country to make sure gay people don't have the opportunity to be as miserable as the rest of us.

I heard all about the scandal on the radio, and after I parked the car in the garage under Big Pink and got upstairs I found a flyer under the door about the Condo association election on Monday, and three phone messages waiting.

I love the new technology. The first message was from Senator John McCain asking me to vote for the guy opposing the incumbent in the House race here in Arlington County.

I made a note. One of the other two was from Mike, who works in my office. He wants to be a County Councilman for some reason, and I support him.

The evening news had more about the clergyman with his hand on some part of the cookie-jar. It made me sit up straight, since like you, I enjoy a good juicy scandal, and the more hypocritical the better.

Pastor Ted Haggard talks to President George W. Bush regularly, and is one of those scary-handsome men with an angelic face that sits on top of an active libido.

He drives a Chevy pickup, by report, and presides over an extraordinary megachurch in the shadow of the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.

I know the church well, since I recently recently was riding in a car I couldn't smoke in, and it was pouring rain. I had to stop to smoke a under the awning of the side entrance to the place, which features soaring glass and a vast parking lot. I peered in the doors and it had a snack-bar in the lobby, and looked more like a professional basketball arena than a place of worship.

The place scares a friend of mine, who is gentle and cares about global warming and fish populations.

Up until yesterday, Pastor Ted was also the chief of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE). That organization is comprised of 45,000 churches and counts 30 million believers. I don't know if the allegations against the Pastor are going to make a difference.

The image of this righteous man engaged in steamy man-on-man sex is certainly disquieting, but it also seems so cliché. Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker spring immediately to mind. I heard Bakker is back on television, in Branson, Missouri, of all places, so perhaps Pastor Ted shouldn't be counted out completely.

Gay marriage is on the ballot here in Virginia, too. I was studying a copy of the one for Arlington that the local Democratic Party sent me as a guide, with their recommendations highlighted.

There are only four races of note, the Council position my friend is running for, a school board seat, and the two national posts in the House and Senate.

There are several propositions, too, which looked like authorizations to spend a lot of millions on public works.

I resolved to ask my pal what on earth they are for, since the County has a surplus in the budget last time I looked.

I got another call while I was looking at the ballot. A woman asked me who I was voting for in the Senate race, and I told he I was voting for the guy who won the Navy Cross. He has integrity, I said.

She didn't know who that was, and I didn't bother to tell her.

The last thing I looked at before bed was the election flyer for the Big Pink Condo Board.

If all politics are local, it doesn't get any more local than your own building. The flyer was pretty personal. Let me tell you, this one is getting downright nasty.