Kerryed away

“If baseball be a portent of things to come, with the Boston Red Sox waging once more a losing battle against the Yankees, then the Kerry camp need limber up some more for the last inning of the game.” So I said two weeks ago. And of course, I was referring to the Kerry camp’s frantic and seemingly hopeless 11th hour maneuvers on the U.S. presidential race.

After 86 years, the Boston Red Sox, the perennial heartbreak kids in and out the of diamond field, finally got their act together and proceeded to dismember with a vengeance the ever confident Yankees and clobbered the energized Cardinals. The World Series trophy now resides at Fenway Park in Boston.

Now, how goes the Kerry camp? National Public Radio reported that polls before the presidential debates showed President Bush ahead by 3 points, lost most of it after the first round, lost a bit more on the second round, and gained it back on the third round. Then, somehow, he lost it again after the World Series, and now Kerry seems to have the edge on the home stretch. A Kerry incremental surge is on, but still, there is no sure money in Vegas on this one.

In this territorial nook cum Commonwealth-to-be-treated-like-a-state corner of the western Pacific, we decided to “mock” the presidential debate and election. I did not expect Senator Kerry to do much of a showing since even the islands‚ the Democratic Party flag bearer publicly declared that he could out-Bush Republican Party incumbent and party titular head Gov. Juan N. Babauta. And with Election Commissioner Greg Sablan’s feisty showing during the mock debate for Ralph Nader, one can easily concede the protest vote to go on the Independent candidate’s column. I was prepared for a 20-25 percent Kerry showing.

As of 8pm Saturday night, the unofficial count I got of the registered votes in Saipan was 178 for Bush and 125 for Kerry. Being constitutionally a rooter for the underdog, I had hoped for an even score. At 40 percent, four vs. six came as a letdown, in the first instance. Then on reflection, it began to appear to be a somewhat decent showing.

In an overwhelmingly Republican island, with senior citizens reported to be the majority of those exercising their privilege to vote, Kerry’s showing did not turn out bad at all.

Neither a superstitious person nor a betting one, nevertheless, I ask, “might Fenway Park Sox-ing it to the Yankees and the Cardinals going to effect the election?” It now seems like even the New England Patriots have joined the live Boston Tea Party of the Third Millennium.

Historians have labeled post-WWII America of the Truman years as a period of a “Preponderance of Power.” The notable Missourian exercised that power judiciously and with a high sense of personal responsibility by delineating where exactly the buck stopped. The anxiety-laden reign of Richard Milhaus Nixon had been dubbed as an era of an “Arrogance of Power,” with the marginal yet morality-driven Quaker justifying his actions to the end against the harsh judgment of history. A Vietnam War retrospective by Pentagon Papers fame Neil Sheehan in the late 80s chronicled the Roman candle life of Col. John Paul Vann in that tragic war, in a book titled A Bright Shining Lie. That big lie rent the soul of a nation. Now, comes Thomas Frank’s brilliant and funny analysis, What’s the Matter with Kansas, the current literary rage and bestseller which presents a critical assessment of how in the last 30 years, the political conservatives in the nation managed to create a populist movement against the heretofore Eastern seaboard-led liberal establishment.

The reality that Thomas Frank’s book describes about how a group of frat boys, lawyers, and CEOs came to convince a nation that they spoke on behalf of the People defines the dividing line between the Bush faithful and the Kerry reformers. In a telling though overly simplified categorization, the Bush camp was characterized elsewhere as leading with their soul while the Kerry camp leads with its mind. Cute but hardly accurate. Regardless, two visions of American have clearly emerged. One bears the determined, militant, and powerful cry of “Remember the Alamo,” belligerent, bellicose and definitely macho from the Alamo. On the other hand, there is a comical Boston Tea Party in progress, outrageously vaudevillian and graciously irreverent that combines a strong dissent of the governed against George, and a forceful reassertion of the gains of civil rights and liberties against the entrenched, assertive sentiments of the antebellum guardians who sees a nation under siege.

A colleague called me to account for what he perceived were misplaced critical statements I made about the nation and the Bush administration. Put mildly, he thought I sounded “anti-American.” Au contraire, mon ami. (Sorry, I still call it French fries!) Doing a job for Uncle Sam irrespective of the welfare of the planet, in general, the integrity of its diverse cultures, in particular, is no longer sufficient, nor American. We in the United States have come to live off the resources and labor of the world. We’ve done so in the exercise of our freedom and in the context of a global order that we have molded in the shape of a free market economy—one market under God! With such freedom comes responsibility. To hold oneself accountable to one’s own standards, not one for homeland and a separate one for the stranger, is very American. “We hold these truths to be self-evident . . .” did not have a qualifying phrase that said, “only if you are within our borders.”

In one sense, the result of the 2004 presidential election will not decide which side of the Continental divide prevails. For in this election, both sides of the divide have organized at the grassroots and defined their locally grounded voices. Direct participatory democracy might add confusion to the stew but it is futuric and desirable. Even the NMC-student organized mock debates and election speaks of an awakened sense that individual responsibility defines the communal character. We can no longer settle for “federal” to mean “representative.” It must now mean, participation of “We the people.” We are Americans, and dang it, we can choose to start acting like one.

That’s why in this election, and thanks to the inspired Boston Red Sox, I got Kerryed away.

(Strictly a personal view. Vergara writes a weekly column for the Saipan Tribune.)