Oregon's junior U.S. Senator rolled through town today for a short town hall meeting at Maple Elementary. My spouse needed a break, so I took the boy to meet the Honorable Jeff Merkley. The Tuscon shooting is still in my thoughts, and I think in an odd way that probably inspired us to go. I don't have too many political hobbyhorses and I feel like my views have gotten almost pathetically conventional in the past four or so years, so my intentions in going were mainly to a) have my son meet an admirable guy, b) show up and see which local dignitaries came out, and c) be a witness to the fact that not every person in my hometown is either a political crackpot or a local dignitary. And I wanted my son to be a part of that witness. Admirably, he was. While goateed middle aged men in camo jackets raved about Rand Paul and questioned the Federal Reserve, and obnoxiously bead-wearing peace-niks denounced Citizens United corporate speech, I sat in the back with my son and the Chief of Police, who used to coach my tee ball team. My son waved to everybody who talked to him, and even chatted up the school custodian, who gave him a stuffed turtle. The boy got the giggles as we played with the water fountain in the back, splashing and slurping as some very concerned people passionately questioned the Senator about some very abstract ideas. Eventually, one of the libertarians who unsurprisingly described herself in her remarks (it wasn't a question) to the Senator as "newly awakened" to politics in the last few years came to the back of the room where we were playing in the water fountain. She cooed all over my son. She doted on his curly hair and helped him make the water come squirting out of the fountain, all to the sound of his happy giggles.
That is what politics should be about. The structure of these town hall events generally mean that only the highly ideologically motivated and/or older folks with free time on their hands tend to come out. That's an unwelcome influence on our politics in my humble opinion, because policies naturally skew in favor of the people who get elected and make them: older, motivated wealthy people. As I told one of the Senator's staffers, we need more kids at these things. She smiled at my son and heartily agreed.
We waited at the exit door while Liberty Campaigners tried to debate the Senator about the gold standard. Before he could get in his car and head for the next town, we said hi and shook hands. I introduced my son to him and just gave him a simple thanks for coming to our little city. A train horn went off in the distance, and my son said "train!" The Senator acknowledged the train- I'm pretty certain no one but the boy had even paid any attention to it- and with a weary smile said, 'Yep, that's probably more interesting than one of these things.' Far from it.
(photo: the boy found a tiny plastic confetti money sign on the cafeteria floor, and we took turns licking our fingers and sticking it to our foreheads)
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