Politics as Usual

I'm back. Not that many people were actually paying attention. I don't even know where to begin. It was good to spend a little R & R time with buddy Bill of Burlington, VT, Ward 2 Progressive party politics, and chatter about the old days, old haunts, the people I used to know, and ask "Where are they now?" I was extremely happy to hear that Anthony Pollina is once again making a bid for the Gubnor's Mansion right there in Vermont. I worked on the Pollina campaign in 2000, in which Anthony made a strong third party showing. Go here and check him out: http://www.anthonypollina.com/.

Puerto Rican politics, I was reminded, are very interesting. If you don't have any idea of the contention surrounding commonwealth vs. statehood and all that, read a little on the history, beginning with Spanish cession of Puerto Rico to the US after the Spanish American War. In 1917, President Woodrow Wilson "granted" Puerto Ricans US citizenship. That word warrants quotation marks because it's loaded. Citizenship isn't all it's cracked up to be, in certatin cases.

The primaries in Puerto Rico were held today. Whether or not Obama or Hillary or McCain, or anyone else, such as myself, who might be elected President in November, pays attention to the statehood issue in Puerto Rico is important, but people don't necessarily seem hopeful that the question will actually be resolved. Many candidates run for representative and senator in their own commonwealth legislature, and at least this year, they seem younger than we often see in our own races. I like that. (I'll talk about youth here in the States soon enough, and the plight befalling them.) People place huge speakers in the backs of pickup trucks and drive through the streets, around and around, or park on the sides of roads in rallies, with food and beer, and the speakers blare music and candidates' messages. Sometimes individual candidates do this. Sometimes parades of trucks of competing candidates form parades. I like that, too, even at 7:30AM on a Sunday, even repetivitely at 10PM the night before I am scheduled to get up early and fly home.

People came out in droves to see Bill Clinton speak on Thursday evening and Barack Obama on Friday evening, here in Laramie, in anticipation of yesterday's Wyoming Democratic Conventions, more for Obama than for Clinton, and Obama won the state. I may have to look ahead to 2012 after all. In the meantime, to those of you who think color shouldn't be an issue in this race, I thought I agreed, until Jodie told me Friday night she wants to vote for me because she would like the White House to be purple. I'll take that vote.