At the renovated Memorial Hall in downtown Cincinnati this past Sunday,
Bill Clinton made a brief appearance in support of the Senatorial candidacy of Lee Fisher.
When seeing someone like Clinton in person, the weight of history and memory and celebrity and notoriety converge into a heightened moment of shared excitement.
He was able, in a few minutes, to convey concisely and clearly what the midterm election is all about. That is his gift - love him or hate him. It was a pleasure to hear the penultimate “player” of this game speaking so plainly, using football metaphors in a way that sounded somehow not corny, but, rather, exactly to the point.
Politics has been described as “blood sport”. It is a game of power and one-upmanship and ego and bravado blended into a deadly gumbo whose main ingredient is money. Oh, yes, and public service.
Whatever we may think about politics, the laws and amendments that pour forth from Washington, D.C. have real world consequences for citizens from all kinds of backgrounds. They can cause people's lives to improve, to stagnate, or to suffer. They can cause young members of this country to go into harm’s way and possibly die for just or for phony reasons. Politics is a game of very high stakes and consequences for Americans like my teenage daughter, who have so much living to do in the future that I pray is theirs to have.
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