By Kerri Havnen Gordon
On Super Tuesday last week, my colleague and I at first treaded lightly with our words on the day’s events. We must have sensed that we shared similar views, because a minute or two into our phone conversation about the primaries, she cautiously mentioned that for the first time in years, she was genuinely excited to vote for a presidential candidate.
As it turned out, it was the same party but a different candidate than I had settled on. With impressive eloquence and sincerity, she told me the reasoning and soul searching that finally led to her choice. I explained a little about how I came to support the party’s other front-runner. One of us sided with experience and the other with idealism, and both respected the other’s position.
When I hung up, I was a little stunned that the conversation had been wholly satisfying and not at all contentious, even though we had come to different conclusions. But why should this be stunning? Isn’t this the way political discourse is supposed to be? Two people sharing ideas and comparing stances in a respectful way?
If our party affiliations had been different, I imagine our conversation could have gone differently – shorter, more guarded, less revealing, less accepting and perhaps with a touch of anger thrown in. That’s unfortunate but expected, I suppose.
With a passionate two-party system, political conversations are bound to get heated, but the polarization that has gripped our country these past eight years has been particularly nasty and gut-wrenching. Blood pressures rise at the mere mention of the Iraq war, global warming, terrorism, civil liberties, illegal immigration, stem cell research, Hurricane Katrina, oil prices, the economy, homeland security, taxes, political detainees, health care, and the list goes on. Throw in names like Rumsfeld, Rove, Pelosi, Cheney, Bolton and, of course, the Big Cheese himself and blood pressures go through the roof on both sides of the fence.
It doesn’t help when commentators like Ann Coulter somehow secure media time to spit the most despicable venom they can muster. Last year Coulter actually said on “Good Morning America” something about wishing John Edwards had been killed in an assassination plot. Coulter and her kind may defend their seedy behavior under the guise of free speech or even humor, but I am sickened by their lack of dignity and their complete disregard for constructive political dialogue.
Yes, we have become a prickly, cynical, excitable nation. People are angry, entrenched in their positions and staring down an election year that either will further fuel partisan passions or begin to bridge the gaping gaps between us. How this plays out in the media and in our communities will set the election-year tone that we’ll all have to live with for the next 10 months.
So brace yourself, because here we go on a march toward Election Day 2008. Along the way, like-minded friends and neighbors will commiserate about politics over cups of coffee, bottles of beer and glasses of wine. Can the same civility be said for mixed groups of Democrats and Republicans?
