Wait, Who Am I Here

Dennis Kucinich and his wife Elizabeth in Santa Barbara on Sunday.

They look solemn for a reason, as they had just visited Arlington West on the other side of Stearns Wharf prior to the brief speech that was long on big ideas and short on any way to get there. (Sure, let's take back our country, but what does it mean that your very state, Dennis, ran one of the whackiest election days in 2004? Let's not forget the Biblical line about the plank in your eye, although clearly Bush is much more than a speck in ours.) But the point of this entry isn't to say anything about whether Kucinich is or isn't fit to be president. OK, beyond this--why do we immediately want to dismiss a candidate for looking geeky and being short-ish? I want to vote for a president, not date him (or her).

No, the oddest thing is politics itself. For on Sunday we were part of a gathering of 150 or so watching Kucinich and his wife respond to Arlington West. For those of you not in Santa Barbara, or those of you who live here but think like your President and believe that wars are much eaiser to fight when we don't think about the people who get killed in them, the sight of 3000 crosses is mighty powerful. (They stopped at 3000, even though the figure is now 3,845, as it just got to be too time-consuming to set up all those crosses....) What should be a private moment, at least an un-mediated moment, can't help but be one, even for a candidate that the media tend to ignore, or treat like a sideshow (he gets to be the Dem's Tom Thumb).

It's a lose-lose, in a way, for if you over emote, it seems calculated, yet if you under-respond, you seem callous. But, of course, the real issue is that we now live in a world where every moment of a candidate's life is more than fodder, it's necessary feed for the 24-hour news cycle. They have to talk about something, and if it weren't for O.J. and Britney, the news would have to discuss how the Republicans are obstructionist and wield the veto after telling the Democrats if they ever used it, they'd abolish it--or something boring like that. You know, something about how the country actually works, or fails to.

Meanwhile we can watch Dennis Kucinich look sad, maybe because he is, maybe because he has to, or maybe both. Or maybe none of us--actors or those watching--can tell anymore. I mean, I catch myself wondering what's the face I should make, what's the thing I can say, as people kindly try to offer condolences for my dad, and I'm not running for anything.