Mack
Hall, HSG
Channeling Floyd
Turbo
A
bed-and-breakfast in New Hampshire has posted a hand-lettered sign banning all
politicians. For a nickel’s worth of
cardboard and colored ink the B & B has accomplished the American dream, a
transient Kardassian moment of look-at-me-me-me-ness which no one with a
vocabulary larger than 300 words takes seriously.
For
a few months every four years New Hampshire awakens from its somnolence (Listen
– you can hear the chorus sighing “Brigadoon!
Brigadoo-oon!”), sloshes on its makeup, and, like New Orleans, parodies
itself.
Presidential
candidates prove themselves worthy of the power of nuclear winter by channeling
Johnny Carson’s Floyd Turbo and yukking it up with The Just Plain Folks down at
Ma and Pa’s Cafe. They costume
themselves in ye olde New Hampshire quaint and colorful ethnic folk dress –
baseball caps and plaid hunting shirts made in China – and pretend to be Your
Neighbor. Of course Your Neighbors in
New Hampshire are only playing at being Your Neighbor, too, so it is all
wonderfully confusing.
Perhaps
it will help if we think of the New Hampshire primary as one of those historical
re-enactment events, only instead of everyone dressing up as Civil War soldiers,
they pose as Ethan Allen’s Green Mountain Boys with mobile ‘phones locked and
loaded.
One
can understand any restaurant banning presidential candidates, if only because
the candidates don’t know how many people they are. When a candidate completes the forms for
standing for election, he or she immediately becomes a “we,” as in “We are
going win this state” and “We will not indulge in negative ads, unlike our
lying, depraved opponent who sacrifices hamsters to the moon goddess.” If the café’ has available a table for four
and the visiting candidate presents himself as “we,” the staff don’t know if
four seats are adequate or if they need to push some tables together.
Perhaps
the “we” connects with the candidate’s assertion of God’s backing; a number of
candidates and their spouses have claimed that they have received personal
revelations from God telling them that God wants them to be Mr. and Mrs.
President.
And,
hey, who are the rest of us to go against the will of God as revealed to a
player in a chambray shirt that will never be splattered with oil stains or
sweat, eh?
Did
George Washington trade in his tricorn for a ball cap when he stood for
President?
Did
FDR switch his cigarette holder for a chaw of terbaccy and hang out in New
Hampshire playing checkers with Larry, Daryl, and Daryl on the evening of the 7th
of December, 1941?
Did
John Kennedy sport a faux work shirt while checking out the farmer’s
daughter…um…mingling with The People in 1960?
Once
upon a time presidential candidates were chosen in smoke-filled rooms. The air in the rooms is more aromatic than
ever, but the scent is not that of smoke.
But
let us remember that very few nations switch administrations without firing
squads, and we are one of the happy few. We can be thankful that the worst we have to
suffer is watching members of the Harvard Club pretend, like Marie Antoinette,
to be rustics.
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