Harry Truman’s way
Posted on Sunday, May 11, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/Editorial/225501/
YOU KNOW you’ve spent way too
much time watching campaign
coverage this presidential election year when you find yourself up at midnight waiting for the votes to come in from Lake County, Ind. Lake County, Indiana ? Some of us didn’t know there was such a place a few hours earlier—couldn’t have found it on a map. But thanks to the wonderful televised world of information overload, you know it’s close to Chicago, includes quote, Heavily African American, unquote, Gary, Indiana, and is said to be flat-out Obama Country. And what with the junior senator from nearby Illinois less than 20, 000 votes shy of overtaking Hillary Clinton in the Indiana primary, why, those votes from Lake County are crucial ! CRUCIAL, WE TELL YOU ! How leave the set now when those absentee ballots could be counted any second ? And depending on which way those ballots swing, it’ll change absolutely nothing in this fight-to-the-death for the Democratic presidential nomination. Oh, the late-night drama of it all ! And, oh, the sheer dadgum waste of time and emotional energy. Watching Chris Matthews—or was it Keith Olbermann?—rattle on about nothing in particular, it finally hit us. We’d hit rock bottom. Like a drunk starring at his unshaven reflection in the mirror who realizes he needs help—yesterday.
That midnight wake-up call made us recognize how far politics in America has come—in the wrong direction. Because we knew we weren’t the only suckers watching.
Shuffling off to bed—those Lake County ballots could wait, by golly—the mind drifted toward... Harry Truman. The story may be legend, but we doubt it. It goes something like this: The night of the presidential election, Harry S. was supposed to lose to Thomas G. Dewey. Gallup said so. So the incumbent ate a hamand-cheese sandwich, drank his glass of buttermilk and went to bed. No use worrying about something he couldn’t control. Besides, the results would be there in the morning. More or less.
Harry Truman knew how to live. And when to let it go. We all know how the Truman-Dewey story turned out. Harry Truman scored a two-fer: He won reelection and he didn’t give himself an ulcer. Let’s return to the past, specifically 1948. It would be progress.
As for Hillary-Obama, one day it, too, shall pass. In the meantime, we vow to end the next oh-so-decisive primary night with a sandwich, a glass of buttermilk, and an early turn-in. And leave the Olbermanns and Matthewses and the whole overexcited televised crowd to talk to themselves. They all deserve each other. Well, we might tune in for just a few words from David Gergen. He always puts us to sleep.