Prairie Dispatch: We Don’ Need No Steenkin’ Polls

Last night’s primary produced one sure winner…and one big loser. The winner—we, the people. Like Iowa, the voters of New Hampshire turned out in force and said, “enough’s enough.” We’re sick of top down tell us how to think and vote. We’re takin’ back our democracy, one state, one primary, one vote at a time.

The landscape looks a lot more colorful this morning, not just A vs. B, but the nuances and interactions of candidates bringing to the table their street cred and their issues. And by street cred, we’re not talkin’ Wall Street and inside the Beltway, we’re talkin’ Main Street, and the highways and byways of Real America.

Which brings us to the big loser last night. The cocktail wienies lost big time. The pundits and prognosticators and poll-takers and poll-interpreters and poll-spinners lost.

And hurray for that!

They’re still trying to dictate top down. Telling Edwards it’s time to drop out [Matthews]. Callin’ the Democratic side in disarray [Buchanan]. Well, guess what guys. We ain’t buyin’ what you’re sellin’ anymore.

John Edwards said we are going to be in an epic battle to wrest back this country from the corporatists. We haven’t settled on the one leader for that epic battle, but obviously the battle is joined.

We don’t need to rattle pitchforks. We vote.

Culling the Heard

Decisions are being made today, undecideds are finally deciding on someone. The first vote tallies are in from Dixville Notch, and Obama scores as many votes single-handedly as all the Republicans combined.

As the day unfolds, exit polls, pundits — the “experts” — will tell us what it all means. Or not.

We’re seeing a paradigm shift these days. There are all kinds of metaphors for what’s happening.

My personal favorite just because of the divine justice of it, post-Katrina, is that the Republican party is quaking and shuddering and slumping away like a levee hit by the rising Democratic tide. Their feats of clay aren’t made for walkin’ any more…

So maybe Tsunami Tuesday coming up on February 5 takes on a whole ’nother meaning.

There are some other decisions being made in the culture as well.

Last night we tuned in the Daily Show and Colbert Report. Not before trying to find out whether they were right with the WGA. And you know, there’s been about as much of a clampdown on that conversation as the mainstream media’s clampdown on coverage of presidential candidate John Edwards. Whazzup with that?

We ran across one little dustup over at Crooks and Liars down in a Huckabee thread…check it out for yourself, starting at comment 56. Some hot feelings. Where’s there’s fire, there’s smoke?

So today, New Hampshire gets its moment in the spotlight and then the swarm moves on to Nevada and South Carolina. Around here, we’ve already decided. For Edwards Before Iowa.

And Comedy Central’s stars and soon Bill Maher and already Letterman and Leno and Ferguson and Kimmel and…well, the vote’s not totally in. But in our household, by bedtime last night, regarding the Stewart/Colbert return, we’d decided we’re “ambivalent.”

Strong at the Broken Places

Because we live with disability in the Sunshine household, Richard M. Cohen's appearance this morning on the Imus show caught our attention. He's touting his new book, Strong at the Broken Places, which recounts the life experiences of five people who live with chronic illnesses.

Cohen himself [Mr. Meredith Vieira of Today Show fame--and The View infamy?] lives with multiple sclerosis and now blindness.

He hit some hot buttons we understand...the disabled are not looking for a hand...or a handout. We, disabled and caregiver alike, just want to be treated like everybody else. With this book, Cohen offers, in fact, a hand out to the "normal" community but more importantly, a reaching-out to others who daily endure the challenges of life lived as fully as possible despite the crap that is disability and chronic illness.

In their conversation, Imus and Cohen amplify a telling point: these are the stories the general public--and doctors!--don't hear enough.

Don't know about you guys, but I'm planning to get this book as soon as the local bookstore opens this morning--and if they don't have it yet, I'll be ordering it online. One for us, one for the local library, one for Mr. Sunshine's doctors, one for.... well, you get the idea. This is a long overdue subject for discussion.

Kind of like the whole business of turning the page on the status quo in politics. Enough of healthcare--and living--being dictated from the top down. Patients and caregivers' voices must be heard, and Cohen offers a much needed catapult to the conversation.

And yes, there's a website. I've already stopped by, and I hope you will, too. Tell 'em Prairie sent you... Strong at the Broken Places

Dog Tired

There’s a hurry-up sense of urgency to living these days. And yet, we are dog tired. Imagine how tired the political candidates and their teams must be. Not the ones that moved to New Hampshire, but the ones who left Iowa…and headed home.

We tip our hat this morning for the candidates who withdrew from the campaign after the Iowa caucuses. Senator Dodd, Senator Biden, especially, we salute and honor your effort.

We’ve started this campaign season way early, like trying to plant seed corn and tomato plants while there’s still snow on the ground. What will come of this year’s crop? That’s still to play out. A good crop’s going to take tending, by all of us.

But for now, we have this pair of WOGs—wise ol’ guys—who’ve ended their campaigns.

When Mr. Sunshine and his partner started up an independent business some years ago, they brought four decades between ’em of experience…and yet, because they were in new territory, they recognized they had much to learn and they found their own WOGs to help grow their business, to provide an institutional memory to draw on—like a sweet spring of endless water.

The current White House promised it would have its team of WOGs, too.

But just because you’re old, or just because you’re experienced, doesn’t mean you have the right kind of experience or agenda to offer.

COGs, not WOGs, have been rulin’ the land for the past seven years, and we must demand better. And we can’t just be better ourselves so we are not hypocrites demanding of others what we protest, oh, we’re too tired, or too busy, or it’s just one o’me, or…. We must do better.

Yesterday I dropped by a League of Women Voters event here in Prairie Country, invited, testing the waters. The professor emeritus spoke about a dry subject. Initiatives, referendums, recall. Out here we take ’em for granted, most every state has ’em. Pluses and minuses have they. And unintended consequences, sometimes. But they are the last line of defense for the common good. Born of an earlier time when wretched excess and corruption reigned and needed reining-in.

This WOG professor also spoke of democracy. More than voting, says he. And that’s the sum of it. Democracy is not for the faint of heart or shirker. It’s for the worker, if we’ll do it.

He shared a reminiscence of teaching in Texas and getting in a wee bit o’trouble for using a textbook that included an explanation of the American Economic System as capitalism for the poor and socialism for the rich.

The more things change…the more they stay the same? Only if we let them. Only if we say we’re too dog-tired, let someone else do it. But we tried that. And we got COGs, not WOGs. Cheerleaders and wordspinners, not players, not quarterbacks. Not workers.

We’re starting to put things to rights again. Paulose out in Minnesota, Magill in…hurray for a son of Fargo. Rummy’s gone, Greenbucks, too…but the wreckage of their hand still weighs on the military, on the economy that leaves far too many have-not’s and once-had’s behind so the have-more’s can grab more and dance while wounded soldiers languish in their pain.

There’s much to be done for a new president, yes. But there’s much to be done right now. In the meantime. And so we call out to Senators Dodd and Biden…serve us well as only you are in a place to do. We need your wisdom, your institutional memory, your vigor that led you to seek the highest office. We are all dog-tired of the last seven years, but there’s still a year to go, and we can’t afford to stand by and let things get worse.

WOGs, lead on…and we will have your backs, because democracy is more than just voting. It is discussion, deliberation, interacting, reflecting, said Plato…every thing this administration has disdained is the best of what democracy must be.

This president said early on he didn’t have a problem with dictatorship as long as he got to be dictator. And he did.

Now, dog-tired as we are, we must re-establish the democracy we so sorely need, and we need every WOG we’ve got to do it.

Morning After

There'll be lots of punditry 'positing today and through the weekend. What happened in Iowa? What does it mean? Who won, who lost. Who's up who's down, who's in who's out....

Cut thru all the kudzu, and you'll get to the real message of Iowa: Voting works. And the message of populism sweeps across the entire political landscape like a field of sunflowers blooming across the prairies.

Thank you, Iowa.

Postcard from Prairie: No Time for Cruise Control

Big things are happening today at the south end of Prairie Country...where our Iowa neighbors are preparing for tonight's "first in the nation" caucuses for the 2008 election. Must be stirring up a lot of excitement, because the winds have been blustery and warming from the south.

Around here this morning, the radio warned those winds were burnishing frosty patches on the highways and said turn off your cruise control.

Seems like pretty good advice for our neighbors to the south, as well. This is no time to rely on coasting or letting the mechanical systems do your driving for you. Seize the wheel and take charge of your destiny. Head to your caucuses, Iowegians, and vote. Set a tone that every voting-age American must follow this year.

Because 2008 may have many dangerous icy patches ahead, and blustery winds, and trucks buffeted by the winds right in front of you as you motor up your version of the Interstate that is Prairie Country North, so you must pay attention to the road, keep your wheels in good working order, and take charge of steering the country back on track.

A Republic, If You Can Keep It

In our little corner of the tall timber, just at the east edge of Prairie Country, the sun rises across the lake, behind a ridge of red pines. The cabin faces that sunrise, bathes in its glow to launch the day.

We face a new sunrise dawning now with the start of 2008. And there is much work to be done. But first, we indulge in a bit of reflection, weighing the nature of the day, the strength and energy it will demand. There are bird feeders to be filled. And sidewalks to shovel or, in its season, lawns to be mowed.

The seeking fingers of daylight will be reaching further into the shadows this year. And it will be hard. Others are arising, shaking off somnolence, and we ask them, where have you been these past seven years? Or, having seen these past seven years, why now are you choosing another way of division?

But those others will have to hold account with themselves.

For each of us, the prime directive is VOTE. Shame us not with purple-fingered other countries. We must vote.

Sorrow us not again with lines ten hours long in rain drenched states trying to deny our brothers and sisters the basic right of every American. We must vote.

Through winter storms and frigid weather, through flooded Southern cities, through the largest of our cities under siege, lessons have been shown. We must vote.

The history is told of the founding of this nation and a woman’s question to Ben Franklin—republic, sir, or monarchy? “Republic, if you can keep it.”

Keeping our Republic calls us to a noble purpose of citizenry. Vote we must. But vote smart—not for trivialities or beer buddies, but for leaders who will nurture our better selves rather than pandering to the darkness inside. We must choose wisely those we charge with representing us in Congress and in the White House and statehouses. And we must do the hard work of holding them to account when times or actions demand.

Citizenship is not for the faint of heart nor the shirker. As citizenship—or the lack thereof—is waved like a matador’s cape to inflame, it would behoove those who have it to take better care of it.

It starts with your vote. Don’t say your vote doesn’t count, I’m a lonely-only blue in a red state…Leaders are built on the smallest foundations of democracy and grow from there. Vote smart in 2008—not divisiveness or wedge issues, but the issues that bind us together as a nation and deserve restoring and empowering.

Vote…for your dog catcher. For your schoolboard. For your township. For your city. For your state. For your country. Vote…in your primaries, and your caucuses, and the general election next fall. Because if you don’t, someone else will. And look at the mess that’s gotten us in.

The sun is rising on a new year. America Rising, promises John Edwards. The first test is just hours away. Vote, Iowa. Vote, New Hampshire. Vote, America.

It’s a long road ahead. There is work to be done. And miles to go before we sleep.