Pretending that we yearn for "civility" in politics is noble on the surface. But at the end of the day, we know that we prefer shrieking, argumentative candidates, tossing off insults as fast as their little pea brains can devise them.
The unfashionable notion that "my vote doesn’t matter" is not something that will get you an "A" in civics class. But as math geeks and economists will whisper to you, there’s some truth to the reality that any single vote represents lost time that could have been spent more productively eating chicken wings at Happy Hour.
That’s not to say we don’t enjoy politics; the recreation is worthwhile, whether or not we’re pacing the living room, worrying about agricultural price supports or utility deregulation. The threat to the fun, of course, is this "civility" business, hinting that "adult" conversations about matters of State are preferable to screaming at each other.
Massachusetts seems to be the current laboratory for this civility business, with U.S. Sen. Scott Brown and his Democratic opponent, Harvard professor Elizabeth Warren, engaged in less fire-and-brimstone than you might see in a race for dogcatcher in a New Hampshire village.
From the time Brown and Warren mumbled something about discouraging rich folks from funding "negative" advertising aimed at each other, the race has been "civil" to the point of inducing afternoon naps. Even the political journalists – whose job it is to create competitive fervor on the order of a sports writer covering the Red Sox and the Yankees – have been reduced to reporting on each candidate’s fundraising, since anger and ire have been difficult to identify.
Dull Differentiation
Evidence of dull trouble was thrust upon the sleepy electorate as early as January, when Warren was still somewhat of a twinkle in the eye of the lefty Democrats. What did Sen. Brown have to say at the time? "Professor Warren is a very hard-working, talented, accomplished woman…"
Wow. There’s a declaration of war against the Barbarians at the gate.
Beyond the unofficial "come, let us reason together" ethos of the Brown-Warren campaign is the reality that the candidates’ apparent place in the universe is accurate to the point where neither one of them feels obligated to "differentiate" themselves from each other with rhetorical hand grenades.
Brown is the smarty-pants Harvard professor who would vote lefty and would join Obama in breaking down the doors of the rich folks and stealing their bags of gold. Brown is the sort-of-frightened, moderate GOP "problem solver," who discourages the Democrats from running amok, without sounding as scary as the fringe end of the party. There. Not much left to say.
Massachusetts, being Massachusetts, will harbor some smug good feelings about such an adult campaign, even as the citizenry yearns for some sparks to fly. As the satirical news service "The Onion" reported from New Bedford last summer: "Town Hall Meeting Gives Townspeople Chance to Say Stupid Things in Public." We like that.
At the least, Brown and Warren should sharpen up the joke arsenal and have at it, just to keep us all focused. The first Eisenhower-Stevenson presidential campaign in the early 1950s was polite and over-intellectual on the Stevenson end, but it didn’t stop ‘ol Adlai from having a good time. "I offer my opponents a bargain," he said. "If they stop telling lies about me, I will stop telling the truth about them."
Whether or not our political discourse has become as uncivil as the popular wisdom suggests, civility can come easy to those in the political world – if they see it as an advantage. Christian Science Monitor Editor Clayton Collins, bemoaning the "charmless and uncivil" tone of so much political debate, noted in a March column that "civility ought to come naturally to those in the political theater. They’re social dancers by trade."
It was in February of 1923 that bystanders broke up an impending fist fight on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives between a Congressman from Arkansas and a Congressman from Texas. They were even both Democrats. Ah, the good-old-days. Civility be damned.
Banker & Tradesman would like to congratulate Laurence Cohen on his recent election as president of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists.
