The Battle That Was

The price of freedom may be eternal vigilance, but it also requires a high tolerance for folly, a willing retention of disbelief, the patience to endure the seasonal inflations of rhetoric and emotion at election time. No campaign pleases everyone, and some seem to satisfy no one. The election battle just past certainly could not have pleased those who feel a desperate need for calm and reasoned debate of the issues.

For such citizens, this was a disheartening campaign. Sometimes it seemed as though the Republicans had nothing to cheer but fear itself (to twist a long-forgotten F.D.R. slogan), and the Democrats were leaderless and without easily focused issues. But if it was not the best of campaigns, it was probably not the worst, either. For all the obfuscations and invective, despite widely reported apathy, the voters were conscious of having the last word. On the morning after, the U.S. could only hope that soon the smears would fade, the hot words cool, the politics of accommodation resume. Besides, as the following notes illustrate, in the midst of the battle there were odd and funny testaments to the enduring vitality of the American process.

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