I was interviewed by a CNN crew at the Rally to Restore Sanity yesterday. He wanted to find a theme. Why did I come? What were people trying to say with their attendance? What did it mean? Was it politically important? Would it increase turnout on Tuesday?
Funny, none of those questions occured to me when I made the decision to go. And, I would bet that few of those things were top of mind for the folks I jammed on the metro with at 9:00 am.
Mostly, these folks seemed to want to be among the reasonable. They wanted to show up somewhere where the shouting wasn't. They said please and thank you as they packed in more tightly to allow a few extra folks to get on. We congratulated ourselves on our manners even as we grumbled a bit at the Smithsonian platform where the metro police had a barricade up to keep half the train from going to the mall side exit.
I made my decision the first time I heard about it. It must have been in September. I think was on the road traveling for work. I don't know that I had any expectations about the rally, execpt that I wanted to be there. I wanted to stand among the sane.
Turns out, I'm making an interstate move for my job. Originally it was planned for the first of November. And I would be lying if I said that being in D.C. for the rally wasn't a partial factor in why we postponed that move for a month.
Buy why did I want to go? When the CNN producer asked, I couldn't form a coherent sentence. It was important enough for me to be a contributing factor in the timing of a relocation, but I didn't have a sound bite answer. And if one of the GOTV scolds was to take me to task for going instead of phone banking, I don't think I have a sound bite answer for them either.
Maybe this is what I'm tryiing to say: I'm not mean and petty and small. I am not greedy and selfish and myoptic. While I am human, with all the inherent irrationalities that entails, I am not blind to the consequences of short sighted policies and overheated rhetoric. And while I am often silent in the face of opinions I neither understand, endorse or even find particularly coherent, it would be presumptive for you to assume my silence in any way indicates agreement.
I do not knock on doors. I do not make phone calls. It is not my gift, and I do not apologize for it. I do not call out the crazy day after day like the power bloggers. I am not an outspoken advocate against tasers or for car sharing. On good days I manage to pay the bills and take care of my family. I don't obsess over the amount of taxes I pay except to make sure I don't owe at the end of the year because I live paycheck to paycheck. I vote.
Political rhetoric does not speak to me. I want to understand the inside baseball, because I think it's important, but I have no illusions about the process. Hyperbolic commercials bore me. Mailers go in the trash. I appreciate knowing the code words so I can identify who to vote against. I am a one issue voter on the subject of abortion and I have no intention of being reasonable about it now or in the future, which means I would never pull the lever for a Republican. But it doesn't mean I like many of the democrats. I am unreasonable, hopeful and deeply ambivalent. All that in the morning before coffee.
I tell myself I wanted to make a stand for rallies without yelling, and marches without arrests. But who am I to say why I went. In the final analysis I was delighted to find the magical Entheon Village Dragon Bus, I was happy to have my picture snapped with my silly sign. I was sad to see an older gentleman have the paramedics called because he passed out when getting of the metro. I was disappointed not to see the show itself, and I was greatful the hamburger at Harry and Harriet's was so good afterwards.
I wanted to go, and I went. Maybe it meant something, and maybe it didn't. But I have stories. And pictures. And it was, like Martha says, a good thing.