REWIND – ELECTION DAY 2004
PART TWO
Monday, November 1
The first recollection I have of anything personally presidential was during the general election campaign in 1960. I was five years old at the time (pause for you to do the math...continue) and Dad took me to the Milwaukee Airport to see, of all people, Richard Nixon. All I took away from the event is a burned-into-memory image of a sole figure on a spare platform about 50 yards away in black hair and a dark suit speaking to a bunch of men in trenchcoats out on the tarmac somewhere. I don’t recall any signs, no media presence, no advance people – just the young Nixon, standing on what could have been a soapbox, talking with the local businessmen like it was just another Rotary meeting. As I sat from my perspective – on Dad’s shoulders, best seat in the house – I knew this all meant something, but I wasn’t sure what.
My Nixon advocacy extended to the front steps of our home in the west side of Wauwatosa, holding forth on the merits of the my candidate in an intense debate with my best friend and neighbor at the time, who had the nerve to be a Kennedy support. I don’t remember the details, but I’m sure the debate was based on facts and reason. Seems to me we got into a little back-and-forth on the order of "He is not!""Is so!", but I believe the rating was weighted for age, intelligence and scored on a curve anyway. Actually, I don’t think we could get anyone else in the local kid-dom to listen to us.
I first got a sense of the seeming importance of the presidency in 3rd grade on a sudden Friday afternoon, when Mrs. Wismer got a knock on the door from several of the nuns (other teachers and the principal). After much milling around, they finally told us that Kennedy had been killed in Dallas. The rest of that weekend’s memories were all iconic black-and-white TV images of the flag-draped casket, the horse-drawn carriage and the drums. Those muffled drums stayed in my head for months.
We came home from church on Sunday, with my sister Barb jumping up and down about the patsy, Oswald, getting shot on live TV. Just my luck. And why wasn’t she in church again? Anyway, suddenly, even for us kids, the president was important. Later, I would graduate from a short-lived experimental high school named for Kennedy that chose as its motto a phase from JFK’s inaugural address: "To Lead the Land We Love". I was (and am) naive and corny enough to believe it.
I remember joining in several "hot water, cold water, we hate Goldwater" chants on the playground in 4th grade in ‘64. Again, I don’t remember, but Dad must have felt estranged from his moderate Republican party that year, as the first wave of pioneering, ahead-of-their-time wingnuts hijacked the nomination process and brought us Barry "Nuke ‘Em" Goldwater. "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice’" he said, especially since he and his decedents took (take) it upon themselves to define what "liberty" was (is). Anyway, there was no such analysis by me then. It could have been that nothing clever rhymed with Johnson.
My last election as a child (if you consider 13 a child, and what 13 year-old does?) was the horrible, exhilarating, revolutionary year of 1968. Martin and Bobby were killed (JFK, Malcolm, MLK, RFK...boy, those lone-nut gunman sure seem to have gotten the right guys, didn’t they?). The "new" Nixon, the first candidate sold like toothpaste by advertising executives Haldeman and Erlichman, was the "peace" candidate. The RFK assassination robbed the remaning hopeful of hope and the nation sunk into darkness.
Dad died on November 16, 1971 (34 years ago this week). One of my many regrets is that I didn’t get a chance to talk him into voting for McGovern in ‘72. He dutifully held up the Nixon peace-with-honor line at the dinner table, but, deep inside, he may have known that his thinking children who cared about peace in the world and other now-maligned ideals were right and the soon-to-be exposed criminal in the White House was wrong.
At our house now, a meeting of the minds between parents and children is not at all hard to find on all matters Bush. During the campaign, the house was festooned with two Kerry yard signs and one giant sign on an upper balcony, and the boys (10 & 11) decorated their lockers and backpacks with stickers and buttons. While our dinner table conversations usually revolve around issues of shared experiences, joyful events of the day just past, personal responsibility and situational ethics ("Now, when [insert name here] suggested that snowballs were the best way to get the girls’ attention, what should you have done?"), we discussed the merits of Bush and Kerry in a, um, fair way. Sometimes, the poison of Bush campaign lies and spin invaded the discussion. For instance: "Dad, is it true that Kerry voted against funding the troops?" After I explained that there were two versions of the bill and the issue was really about $20 billion in uncontrolled "reconstruction" money for gangsters like Haliburton, of course, I thought the issue was resolved. "But Dad," says my boy, "Why did he vote against funding the troops?"
Oh well. The boys saw the big picture and, according to them, Junior Bush was pretty much of a laughing stock in their schools; it was agreed almost universally, as only boys that age can put it (not in the house, please) that Bush Sucks. Although they had no patience at all for my hogging the TV for prime-time cable squawkfests ("But, SportsCenter is on!" Jeez, isn’t SportsCenter always on?), the whole family was of one mind on the election and its importance. It was in this vein that a friend and I took the boys and her son out of school the day before the election to attend a Kerry rally in downtown Milwaukee.
As she got the boys in line at the rally, I finished up some stuff in the office and walked from there to the rally about seven blocks away. On the way, I purposely walked past the Arena, where Bush was also having a rally about an hour before Kerry’s was to start. The well-heeled mixed with, well, the well-heeled in the line snaking around the corner, while a Bush functionary barked orders through a bullhorn. A lawyer I knew from the courthouse looked up quickly, then away, rightfully embarrassed to be supporting Junior. As I walked past the line, I held up one finger and did a little solo "One More Day" chant (oh, the cleverity). There was no response, no doubt because the unspontaneous and unimaginative Busheteers were waiting for their top-down organization to issue action-plan orders.
From the Darkness and Fear of 4th and Kilbourn, I walked east towards the sunshine of Hope and Democratic Reconstruction on the other side of the Milwaukee River. While the Bush crowd hid behind security barriers, loyalty oaths and under a roof, the highly-motivated Kerry faithful gathered outside on Water Street. In the often-driving rain. And a stiff wind. A brighter future never felt so cold and wet. But we got our way up to the railing around the stage, exactly behind Kerry as he (eventually) spoke. But in the meantime, we had to endure the worst outside weather this side of a Packer game in December. Underdressed, wet and cold, we hung in there for several hours, waiting to see the candidate and offer our support.
As a young guitar player and, later, Jon Bon Jovi slid their fingers over wet fretboards and stomped in the puddles on the stage, the boys bravely held their spots on the rail and shivered under their plastic parkas. Eventually, Kerry arrived with his two daughters for a brief hit-and-run "let’s go get ‘em" speech to the wet 10,000 or so in attendance. After climbing off the platform, Kerry did a circle around the rail, eventually coming to our spot. He spent a few moments with our youngest ("I was too excited. I forgot what he said!") and all got to shake hands and exchange high-five with who we thought would be the next president of the United States.
A couple of rows back, I used my height and reach to shake with the candidate, who, at 6'4", is exactly my height. In what seemed like an extended period of eye contact, I saw hope and confidence. "Thanks, Senator. Let’s do it!" I shouted. And off he went.
We all hurried off to the first place we could find for a late lunch and a warm-up and dry-off before heading home. The boys didn’t seem too excited by the speech, but were genuinely impressed with getting to shake his hand.
Arriving home, I got an e-mail from the Kerry campaign. "I understand you offered to go anywhere for the Voter Protection program tomorrow. How would you like to go up north to a Native American reservation?" Later, I packed my bag, kissed the boy and my wife, and headed up to Crandon, Wisconsin, to protect the vote, making sure every voter was allowed to vote and that every vote was counted.
8:25:56 PM 
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