View from Bizarro World
May 3rd, 2007 at 9:11 pm by Susie
Working for a campaign is the craziest thing I’ve ever lived through. What helps me keep things in perspective is managing to read a few pages of Edwin O’Connor’s “The Last Hurrah” every night before I fall asleep.
The 1955 bestseller was based on the final campaign of Boston’s mayor James M. Curley. Politics hasn’t changed much since the book was written. It’s timeless because politics is about human nature, and incidentally, here’s what I’ve learned so far in this race.
Carl Jung really is a genius. No question.
People will call you all sorts of awful things that have no foundation in reality, simply because you work for your candidate. They will say anything at all to boost their own guy, and self-proclaimed “progressives” can be just as ruthless and indifferent to reality as anything you’d expect from BushCo. Which leads me to my next point:
Ideology always trumps facts. Emotion trumps everything.
Accuracy and truth aren’t the same thing. People would do well to learn the difference.
It’s very important never to actually say anything. If you do, you’ll regret it.
Consultants are the devil.
My candidate is Satan. No, really. Just ask any “progressive.”
There’s a lot more I can’t write about until after the election, but I will tell you this much: I’m more convinced than ever that my guy is the best choice to be mayor.
It’s funny, how often people accuse me of being a hack and a shill. (Which is ironic, considering one of the reasons I’m always so broke is that I seem to be missing the necessary DNA to do work for which I can’t respect myself.) I’m attacked on a personal level so often, I can’t even take it seriously anymore.
My candidate? Oh, he’s being swiftboated. I expected it, and it’s only going to get worse. After all, he’s the only person running who isn’t invested in maintaining some form of the present system, so he’s being attacked from all sides. We’re still in the lead and we’re doing what we can to maintain it.
But I don’t think l’ll ever eat sausage again.
I can appreciate your experience. One of my first jobs was working for Milton Shapp during his 2nd term as Governor. I was young and naive then and had my first experience with shock and awe.
I couldn’t believe the difference between what actually occurred at different events that I attended and the reporting of those same events. It sometimes seemed as though we weren’t on the same planet, nevermind the same event.
One of the guys I worked with then left to run for office & asked me to work on his campaign & I said “no way.” Although I still follow politics, I never regretted not getting too closely involved with the political scene again.