{"id":209152,"date":"2010-01-21T14:29:13","date_gmt":"2010-01-21T19:29:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stanforddaily.com\/cgi-bin\/?p=1037389"},"modified":"2010-01-21T14:29:13","modified_gmt":"2010-01-21T19:29:13","slug":"flechas-y-pedradas-thanks-massachusetts%e2%80%94not%e2%80%a6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/209152","title":{"rendered":"Flechas y Pedradas: Thanks, Massachusetts!\u2014Not\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Spain, listening to people prattle on about politics was an interesting diversion. O.K., maybe not just a diversion; more like a case study, an alternate universe where history had run a different course and now a different set of factors controlled the political reality. Not unintelligible, just not the same. The <\/em>PP, former party of Bush\u2019s pal Jos\u00e9 Mar\u00eda Aznar, could gain seats on Zapatero\u2019s PSOE? Interesting, but I\u2019ve got no horse in that race. Jos\u00e9 Montilla, a non-native speaker of Catal\u00e1n, managed to lead the PSC to victory and helm the Generalitat<\/em>, the governing body of Catlu\u00f1a? Even more complicated and less to do with me. Another soup of abbreviations and another axis of political alignment to worry about–so much to learn before I could even enter into an educated debate, let alone have an informed opinion.<\/p>\n

Eventually I did, and I won\u2019t say it wasn\u2019t rewarding, but, in the back of my mind, I always knew I\u2019d be leaving, and the results of elections couldn\u2019t hurt me much. I said I was a Bar\u00e7a fan while I was there too, but if they lose the Liga I won\u2019t lose sleep. While I was away, reading the political coverage on The New York Times Web site was like receiving dispatches from, well, a foreign land. It was oddly comforting. I could check in on the faltering \u201cprogress\u201d of Obama\u2019s health care initiative like a basketball fan checking in on his alma mater\u2019s team: hoping there would be good news, but not passionately upset by repeatedly unmet expectations.<\/p>\n

That distance can be healthy. The older brother of a high school friend of mine stopped watching his beloved Indiana Hoosiers a few years after he graduated. He\u2019d punched too many walls over missed free throws to be much fun to hang out with on game day. Now, though, he\u2019s a CPA, has a girlfriend and lives in Zurich. To my knowledge, he\u2019s avoided an ulcer.<\/p>\n

Trouble is sports and politics are different. Sure, those trying to predict the outcomes of either one struggle with an overwhelming amount of statistical information and a propensity to fetishize personal narrative. More than that, talking about politics involves so many sports terms it\u2019s easy to forget that\u2019s where they came from. Calling elections \u201craces\u201d or \u201ccontests,\u201d talking about the final push in a campaign as a \u201cfourth quarter drive,\u201d or calling an out-of-nowhere prospect a \u201cdark horse\u201d candidate–all that comes from sports. Dark horse. That\u2019s what\u2019s came up this Tuesday and it\u2019s what reminded me just how different these two areas of American life really are.<\/p>\n

As a transplanted native of Indianapolis, I\u2019ll be upset if the Indianapolis Colts don\u2019t win the AFC Championship game this weekend. I\u2019ve made an emotional investment in the team\u2019s success, something that lets me feel a sense of belonging and in return offers elation with victory and despair with defeat. I\u2019d wager that there\u2019re folks in Vegas who might be upset as well–owing to, well, \u201cother\u201d kinds of investments. But that\u2019s it. Emotional pain and frustration for people like me, some dollars down the drain for the gamblers. Elections are different. Elections change lives.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know how Scott Brown\u2019s win in the special election to replace the late Ted Kennedy as Senator from Massachusetts will impact America. As a Democrat, I suppose I should feel like my team<\/em> lost. Add to that, the loss to Scott Brown, a candidate who managed, with his straightforward name, pickup truck and general propensity for being shirtless, to win \u201cthe people\u2019s seat,\u201d as he calls it. When he takes his oath of office, he\u2019ll also be doing away with the Democrat\u2019s filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. Populist rage, a rejection of the Democratic agenda–that\u2019s how this will be characterized in the media and, I imagine, by those who would see health care reform shelved for another 15 years, those who would be content with sitting around and thumbing their nose at the nation\u2019s problems.<\/p>\n

That can\u2019t happen.<\/p>\n

Maybe I don\u2019t need to trouble myself with the minutiae that constitute a political blogger\u2019s bread and butter. No need to punch walls, no need to give myself an ulcer, but I have to pay attention. I can\u2019t enact the annual coping mechanism of a Raiders fan and self-impose a blackout of ESPN until next season. I can\u2019t look away, because that means avoiding the front page of every major newspaper. That means looking away from the reality of this country in which we live. And I can\u2019t do that.<\/p>\n

So thanks, Massachusetts. Thanks for reminding me to pay attention, for reminding me to stay involved. Thanks for all that, but you can keep Scott Brown.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Spain, listening to people prattle on about politics was an interesting diversion. O.K., maybe not just a diversion; more like a case study, an alternate universe where history had run a different course and now a different set of factors controlled the political reality. Not unintelligible, just not the same. The PP, former party […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2997,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-209152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2997"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=209152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209152\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}