| Emails
from Bill
by
Josephine Lockhart
---I don’t get emails
from Bill Clinton anymore.
---I was getting them all the time in October
- hitting me up for cash. I mean, what, he’s out of bypass a month
and he’s already back on email? That’s insane. Charmed himself
out of ICU to get to his CPU to send me an IOU. Unlike the rest of the
world, I don’t fall for the Clinton charm.
---Well, that’s a lie. I totally
fall for the Clinton charm. Sexy beast. So serious, so quick to smile,
so easy to forgive. Of course I love him. First democratic two-term
president since FDR. Unprecedented peace, economic stability, good times
and reality soap operas out of the oval office. All this and impeachment,
too. Oh yeah, I fall for the Clinton charm.
---I just don’t fall for the emails.
---No matter how hard I try to suspend
my disbelief, I can’t. I know where these emails come from-and
it’s not from the quadruple-by-passed-heart of William Jefferson
Clinton. He’s got a presidential library in Arkansas to haunt,
too much Lipitor to take, sex-in-the-city skirts not to chase. He doesn’t
have time for email. (Does he even know how to use email? Did Al Gore
ever teach him? Seems so base, so un-slick.)
---He doesn’t have time to write
me-or anybody else-email. Trust me, I know. I write email. Worse. I
write e-appeals. I write appeal letters. I hit people up for money.
I fundraise; I write for direct mail. I could be Bill Clinton. (I’m
not, but I’ve been plenty of other people.) I know how the system
works.
---To: sucker@smellthecoffee.com
---From: Your Best Friend, Bill Clinton
For a long time now, you and I have worked together to help fulfill
America’s promise. And I have turned to you often to ask for your
help in advancing the values and vision we share. I know how hard you’re
working, how much you’ve already given of yourself. But we’ve
got to dig even deeper…
---Dig this: BillClinton@DemocraticHQ.com
is really a fit twenty-five-year-old, blond and starry-eyed librarian
who would sooner slash her own wrists than sexually harass anyone. Or
maybe it’s George Stephanopoulos, moonlighting again. Anybody
but Bill Clinton. But who would give fifty bucks to Susie Nobody in
order to secure our freedom from having George W. Bush in the Oval Office
for four more years? What can Susie Nobody do about it? Nothing. But
Bill Clinton, now that guy’s got charm. Hosanna! Save us now!
---I’ve been jaded about direct mail-e-appeals,
telemarketing - but I’m back on the wagon. People need to be needed.
People want to help, fight Tsunamis with two fists, elect decent politicians,
feed hungry people in Africa. Everybody needs to give, wants to receive;
we all need to see what good we can do.
---So, I miss hearing from Bill.
---I miss our sweet lack of exchange. I
miss hearing how John F. Kerry will turn this country around from someone
who knows how to turn a country on. I miss the complete sentences, the
passion and the intelligence. I miss wanting to sell my soul to the
man for a paltry sum. I miss filling the coffers of the Democratic Party.
---I miss the urgency and the hope. And
no, I’m not getting over it.
---I’m in some kind of extended mourning
while the Washington State governor’s race is being held hostage
by a bunch of under-paid ballot counters and over-paid lawyers. I can’t
even throw away my Kerry/Edwards sign. I want it to degrade, to melt
into the earth and recycle itself, but it’s corrugated plastic,
destined to define the word “irony” in a landfill north
of King County. I mean, I will throw it away. Eventually.
---But I’ll miss the sign when it
goes.
---Republicans are pouring
millions of dollars into baseless attacks against John Kerry and the
Democrats because they know that’s the only way they can win.
Don’t let them get away with it.
---I picked up the sign for five bucks
at the Puyallup Fair back in September, at the South Sound Democratic
Party booth, under the grandstands, near the taffy and the toilets.
Someone next to me, flipping through democratic collateral like a bargain
hunter, said I could get a free sign at my local democratic chapter.
That’s not the principle of the thing, I thought, but then who
am I? I was just about to ask her for directions to the place (under
my breath and away from the dedicated lady sitting behind the booth)
and this woman comes up, out of nowhere, a hovering schoolmarm.
---“That sign offends me,”
she said, pointing her little spit-fire finger at the When Women
Vote, Democrats Win! sign.
---“What?” said the lady behind
the booth.
---“That sign, that sign right there.
It offends me.”
---“But it’s true.”
---“I am a woman and I don’t
vote democrat,” she said.
---“Well, OK, but lots of women do,”
said the lady behind the booth, “I mean, statistically.”
---Ooooh! Statistics! I like where this
is going, I thought, and chimed in with an enthusiastic, “like
me!”
---“Well,” said the offended
party, “I don’t and I’m still offended.”
---“OK.”
---“Sign me up!” I said
---“Five bucks,” said the lady
behind the booth as the schoolmarm hovered away.
---“Oh,” I said, “right.
Five bucks.”
---I slapped my money down and then carried
the sign around the parade grounds for an hour and a half, through the
arcade, through the gang bangers and the gray hairs and I’m pretty
sure they were all gunning for me.
---When I got home, I thought about tacking
it up to our fence. Only I didn’t want anyone to deface it, so
I hung it up in the window instead (and forgot to take it down every
time my relatives stopped by). I don’t know who I was trying to
convert. Certainly not that mythical creature, the “undecided
voter”- who was most decidedly not hanging out in my alley.
---More likely, I was trying to convert
myself. I’m an independent after all.
---Last election I voted Nader/LaDuke on
a “don’t ask and I won’t lie to you” ticket.
Back when he was going Green and a third-party platform seemed civilized
and politically responsible. Not that it matters. I live in Seattle.
The good democrat always wins here, right? (Just ask Dino Rossi.)
---In 2000, I thought, nobody can single-handedly
screw this thing up. The money’s flowin’, the winds of change
are a blowin’. The bubble will burst, but then I’ll be able
to buy a house. Bill Clinton’s legacy will never die; it’ll
just sort of ebb and flow and, besides, George Bush, Al Gore, Ralph
Nader. They’re all the same person, really. In fact, they’re
not even people. They’re just cartoons. And who am I?
---We are in the final two
weeks of this campaign and the outcome is in our hands. It’s a
dramatic, decisive moment that will set America’s course for years,
perhaps decades, to come. That’s why I’m urging you to do
everything that you can possibly do…
---I’ve never cared about an election
more than I cared about this one.
---I cared so much that I joined a friend
to monitor polls and canvas in Kent on November 2nd. Why Kent? I don’t
know. I signed up with a non-partisan political action committee and
was plunked down in the heart of Kent. And there I did my part to make
elections fair, to make this election matter. It almost did.
---Over the intercom at the polling place
- an elementary school near the heart of the what I can only assume
is downtown Kent - the election results were announced: Keenan won Class
President (or was it James?) and some other kid got Vice President and
Secretary and what…Minister of Defense? Friday was declared “red,
white and blue” day and the President promised that “this
year is gonna be the best year ever!”
---All in all, I felt pretty good about
it.
---It probably helped that the poll judges
were plying me with Lemon Squares and that the rest of the free world
(that is, Kent) kept streaming into the gym to vote. I kept haunting
my non-descript corner, observing, brooding, wondering what would happen
if I put Keenan down as a write-in candidate.
---I counted about 20-some-old provisional
ballots, mostly issued after voter errors. They were easy to spot, rejected
over and over again by the finicky, vote machine.
---“Did you just pick one?”
“Did you circle it or fill in the circle?” “Did you
really just vote for one?” “I mean, are you sure about every
line?”
---Nope. No one was ever sure. Not after
looking over the ballot, checking it twice. Not after the civic game
of twenty questions. (Poll judges aren’t allowed to touch the
ballots themselves.) It would be easy to write these people off as idiots,
but, hey, who ever reads the voter’s guide? And why are we voting
on whether things should go to a vote? That seems like over-kill. Even
with the voter’s guide stashed up my sleeve like some kind of
“cheat-sheet,” I nearly blew the ballot myself. I monitored
the polls for three hours that day, canvassed for another four and by
the time I got to my polling place, everything looked like mush.
---Don’t screw this up, I thought,
or your vote won’t count. No matter what they say about provisional
ballots, someone will find a way to make your voice unheard. They’re
always trying to take away your right to vote! Defend your ballot!
---Now. Look around and make sure you didn’t
say any of that out loud.
---These closing days of the
campaign are exciting, no doubt about it. But with so much riding on
the outcome of this election, we need to make sure our energy translates
into effective action. Every one of us has a chance to play a vital
role in deciding who wins.
---During his library dedication, Bill
Clinton, wet from torrential rain and speaking to a crowd of umbrellas,
said, “You know, am I the only person in the entire United States
of America who likes both George Bush and John Kerry, who believes they’re
both good people, who believes that they both love our country and they
just see the world differently?”
---Hard to say. Can I get a provisional
“do-over” if I accidentally circle more than one answer?
---I don’t like to think that these
are the last words I’ll ever hear from a public Bill Clinton.
If I’m ever in Arkansas (?!) maybe I’ll spend time sifting
through his 80 million documents. Just to keep the spawn of his enthusiasm
alive in my mind.
---More likely, I’ll let Bill Clinton
go. Just like I’ll let my Kerry/Edwards sign blow off to its over-timely
near-death north (south, east, west) of the city…wherever they
put all of our trash.
---I’ll make my own signs; I’ll
send e-appeals to myself.
---Let’s go for it. America’s
future is on the ballot this year. Let’s use these final days
of the campaign to win the victory that is within our grasp, and secure
the kind of future we want for our children. I’m counting on you.
---We all need to see what good we can
do.
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