A Week of Secrets and Scandal

Doing stuff in secret is usually a mistake. Often times it’s not the action itself but the secrecy surrounding it that implies guilt and scandal. Because one secret is usually hiding a whole family of secrets.  So, on Sunday evening I was completely open and transparent when I told Monty I wouldn’t be home much in the coming week.

“You’ll need to pick the kids up from daycare, and you’ll most likely be putting them to bed as well. The deadline to submit a paper for the Northwest Political Science Association’s annual conference is Friday, and like it or not, I promised Brad I would work with him to submit something.”

His mouth set into a frown. “Can’t you get out of it?”

I shook my head. “I haven’t published anything for a couple of years. This will be good for me too. Besides, you owe me.”

“Why do I owe you?”

I raised my eyebrows. “Your trip?”

His mouth clamped shut, because he knew better than to argue. Another one of his work trips is coming up, this time to Botswana, and it’s still a point of contention between us that he’s going. So he agreed to come home early enough every night this week so I could work late. Nonetheless, on Monday night I came home anyway, made dinner, gave Noah and Abby a bath, then changed into a shirt with dry sleeves. I told Monty not to wait up and returned to my campus office.

If only every day had been like that.

I can imagine how Obama must feel. When the week began, he probably thought the lingering questions about Benghazi were the worst he would have to deal with.

Like a rash that won’t go away, the spreading of blame about the Benghazi attacks continue to irritate. And Hillary Clinton is at the root of it. After all, if she’s going to run for president in 2016, it’s important to paint her as motivated by self-preservation and self-interest, to the point where she would deny, for whatever reason, a resurgence of Al Qaeda.

Yet while this issue may have teeth, so far there’s been no real bite, and it’s easy enough to let it hibernate until 2016. If Clinton is the nominee it will definitely be brought up again. Repeatedly. And if there is any secrecy to be revealed, that will be more damning than the events themselves.

Tuesday evening I sat in a meeting that ran late. Then I called and talked to Abby before bedtime, and I sang Noah the “Five Little Ducks” song, though he dropped the phone before I had made it to the third duck. Afterwards I ate a sandwich at my desk and reviewed Brad’s work while I waited for him to show up. But I was tired and to give myself a break, I ran the paper through my computer program that checks for grammatical errors. It also checks for plagiarism.

That’s when my stomach turned.

It was like seeing the headline about how the Justice Department secretly subpoenaed phone records from the Associated Press.  This wasn’t something that could be dismissed as groundless.

When Brad showed up I confronted him. “Do want to explain all this? There is stuff in here that should have been cited. You know that’s plagiarism.”

His face turned bright red. “I… I thought that part…that it had all been taken out.” He stammered, like now he was testing his words for accuracy as he spoke them.

I sat up straight in my office chair, my back unsupported and stiff. “What do you mean? How could you not know if it had been taken out? Why was it even there in the first place?”

He wiped his forehead with the palm of his hand. There was a stretched out, silent moment before he said, “Originally, Sally and I were working on this paper together.”

It took a minute for his words to sink in. I skipped reprimanding or interrogating him any further. “We’ll talk more about this later.” I got up and gathered my stuff. “I need to talk to Sally.” He nodded and exited my office, and I left to go home. By the time I walked through my door Abby and Noah were asleep, dreaming and unaware of the world around them.  But my own anxiety gnawed away at my thoughts, keeping me from sleeping soundly myself.

“Why would they keep it a secret?” The next morning I asked Monty as he prepared to leave for the day.

“Only two people can answer that.” He kissed me on the cheek. “Good luck talking to Sally.”

On Wednesday I taught in the morning, and Sally taught in the afternoon. It was close to five before I could find her alone. But Brad must have warned her about what was coming, because she was tapping her pen expectantly against her desk when I entered her office.

“It’s not what you think,” she said.

“So explain it to me.”

Her breathing seemed shallow, making her voice sound tinny. “We were working on this paper together. I contributed some sections, but I lost track of some of the sources, and I meant to go back.” She looked down, and drew circles on a piece of scratch paper with her pen. “I was never going to submit it like that. But then, well, something happened.”

It was warm in her office, but I felt a chill. “Did you…”

She set down her pen and looked at me. “Nothing happened, okay? But we developed feelings for each other, and...”She leaned back, suppressing a sigh. “…I don’t know. I wanted to start something more than Brad did. And then he felt it would be best if we didn’t work together anymore, so I agreed, even though I was hurt by it.” She rolled her pen, back and forth underneath the palm of her hand. “But I made him promise to take out all of my contributions to the paper, and I warned him there was stuff in there that wasn’t cited yet. And he promised me that he would.”

I strained to find my voice. “Well, he didn’t, and if I had submitted it with my name attached, I would have been guilty of plagiarism too.”

She closed her eyes and dropped her head in her hands. “You’ve just lost all respect for me, haven’t you?”

I stared at my feet instead of answering. Like learning that the IRS has been targeting Tea Party groups for intense scrutiny, the realization that some paranoid accusations are actually true plowed into my brain like a headache.

“Things haven’t been good between Carl and me,” Sally continued. “But I never meant for anything to actually happen. Lately I feel like all I do is damage control.”

So is it the action itself that is so terrible, or is it the secrecy surrounding it?

Case in point - Tea Party groups are openly against paying taxes, right? Wouldn’t it make sense that the IRS should target them? The IRS’s mistake was doing it without telling people. Similarly, while Sally wasn’t acting with much integrity, perhaps one lie snowballed into something worse than the genesis of what happened.

“Please don’t tell anyone, okay?” Sally pleaded.

More secrets. “I don’t know,” I replied. “This is about me now too. If someone else finds out…”

“Nobody else has to find out.”

I stayed and we talked a while, and I tried to be the good friend who listened to Sally’s convoluted story. But at the end of the day I still didn’t know what to think.

On Thursday afternoon I texted Monty and told him I would pick up the kids from daycare. When he got home at 6:00 they were already eating dinner, and afterwards we played outside in the backyard. It was a beautiful spring evening, and Abby picked weeds and chased after ants while Noah ran around in the mud.

“They’re both getting baths tonight,” I said.

Noah then fell. Monty smiled and placed him on his feet again. “Are you going back to work afterwards?” he asked me.

I sighed and looked up at the evening sky. “I can’t decide. Brad is expecting me, but I don’t want to.”

“If he’s expecting you, you should go. I can give them baths.”

“Yeah, I suppose.”

So I went, and we worked, talking only about the paper and nothing else. I guess when you’re swimming in a sea of controversy the only real life preservers are the facts.

Love, Fear, and the NRA

Seven days ago there wasn't as much to talk about. Who knew then that the coming days would bring bombings, explosions, and high stake man hunts? Who knew then that the news week would be so action packed that a Ricin-laced letter from an Elvis impersonator, to the president, would barely make the front page? It was last Friday evening, and we were at a mixer for the political science department. The days to come would be both tragic and compelling, but we didn't know that yet. For now, students and faculty socialized while drinking wine and eating cheese on crackers. Most of the conversations were naturally about politics, and most of the people there were more or less of the same mind. But not all.

I wanted to punch him. I know that’s ironic given my stance on gun control. But here he was, a member of the NRA, defending the organization that has singlehandedly prevented the U.S from passing reasonable gun control legislation for decades.

Brad, my graduate student, took a civilized sip of wine. We had been talking for several minutes, and he wasn’t responding to any of my most salient points. He spoke in a soft, reasonable tone that contrasted with the nonsense he was speaking. “This bill isn’t a good idea, and it won’t be until lawmakers understand the mentality of the gun owner. If you talk down to them, treat them like children, or tell them which guns they’re not allowed to own, then the gun owners will get pissed off.”

“But what about everyone else? Recent polls show that around 90% of Americans support background checks for buying guns, and around 60% want to ban assault rifles and magazines. The senators aren’t representing the people, they’re representing the NRA.”

Brad shook his bald head at me. “The NRA is the people. Look, someone who is determined to kill isn’t going to be detoured by having to jump through legal hoops to buy a gun. These proposed laws are punishing the wrong guys. The NRA understands what the government doesn’t.”

I squeezed my eyes shut. The NRA doesn’t even understand itself. They’ve become more about the argument than the cause, and their biggest “success” has been scaring a bunch of senators into voting against gun control legislation that most Americans support.

It hasn’t always been this way. In the 1920s and 30s the NRA wasn’t against gun control. They supported permits for carrying and concealing, a national registry for all handgun owners, and a required two day waiting period to buy any sort of gun. Today the NRA is strongly against all this. But that was before gun control was ever truly an issue.

Ironically, the first people in favor of gun control were conservative Republicans. Their main incentive was to keep guns out of the hands of black people.

 Reagan was governor of California at the time. He led the conservative Republicans in their support against increased gun control. Then the assassinations of MLK and RFK led to the gun control act ’68. This made it more difficult to buy a gun, particularly the specific handgun favored by inner city residents, and it also stated who shouldn’t be allowed to buy one – namely felons or ex-felons, the mentally ill, illegal drug users, and minors.

And the NRA was okay with all of this. In fact, in the 1970s they planned to move their main office from D.C. to Colorado Springs so they could focus less on lobbying and more on sportsmanship. But then there was a coup by a fringe group of the NRA, and they took over and switched their focus to a more forceful interpretation of 2nd amendment rights.

In 2008, a landmark ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court mandated that the government can never disarm its citizens altogether. But in the opinion section, Scalia essentially stated that doesn’t include gun possession by felons or the mentally ill, and that guns should never be in schools or government buildings, and laws can impose conditions (like background checks) on the sale of guns.

Yet the NRA continues to contradict all of this as they grow more and more extreme. They also grow more and more powerful, because as gun ownership in this country decreases, the passions of the minority rises and the NRA is determined to motivate its shrinking base. Wayne LaPierre, the head of the NRA, is known to be a lover of strategy more than guns, and into lobbying more than he is into sportsmanship. And even he supported background checks in the late 1990s.

My neck was tightening into little knots. “You know, Canada and Australia started implementing common sense measures on gun control, and they both saw a decrease in gun violence. Sure, it won’t stop it altogether, but it’s a start. If we could do something, cut gun violence in half, that would save 15,000 lives a year.”

Brad stuffed his free hand in his jacket packet. Were his fingers forming a fist? Perhaps this conversation was making him tense too.“Ideally, sure. But the guns are out there already. We need to focus on armed guards and mental health, not on gun control.”

“No.” I tried not to let the hand holding my wine shake with tension. “Other countries have crazy people. Other countries have armed guards. But the U.S. has 13 times as many children murdered by guns in a year than in other industrialized countries. And that’s not including recent figures from Sandy Hook.”

Suddenly there was a warm hand on the back of my neck, right where I had grown the most tense. I turned around and smiled. “Hey, you made it!”

Monty leaned in and kissed my forehead. “What have I missed?”

“Not much, really. Brad and I have been talking gun control.” I gestured to Brad, who was still standing there. “Monty, this is Brad, my graduate student. Brad, this is my husband, Monty.”

Monty smiled and extended his hand. “Nice to meet you! I heard about how you helped Lucy out with Noah when they were both throwing up. That was really nice of you.”

Brad shrugged and smiled in self-deprecation. “It was no big deal. I remember what it’s like to have a boy that young. It was the least I could do.”

Monty raised his eyebrows. “How old is your son now?”

“Twelve. He’s the product of a college romance. His mom and I aren’t together anymore, but Toby is definitely the best thing that ever happened to me.”

Monty continued to ask Brad questions as his inner-talk show host is liable to come out at functions like this. I exhaled, relaxed a little, and looked around the room. Through the corner of my eye, I saw Sally, my colleague and Brad’s original advisor, watching us.

Later, at home, I confessed my suspicions to Monty.

“I wonder if they had a thing.”

He scrunched up his face. “Happily married Sally and Brad? Why?” He was brushing his teeth and I was leaning against the sink as he did, and I watched him spit out his toothpaste. I spoke to his reflection in the mirror rather than to him.

“Because she wouldn’t tell me why she quit being his advisor. And she was desperate; she didn’t even warn me about him.”

He spoke with his toothbrush in his mouth, so his words were slurred. “What is there to warn you about?”

I counted off the reasons on my fingers. “He’s in the NRA. He’s a Libertarian. He likes Rand Paul! And I’m helping him start his career. I’m getting him ready for insertion into the public arena!”

Monty started laughing.

“Don’t laugh. I’m serious.”

He spit out the last of the toothpaste and rinsed out his brush. “Honey, you’re the one who believes in open discourse. You can’t pick and choose who gets an education just because you don’t agree with them.”

Logically, I knew he was right. But these are emotional times we’re living in. “The world’s gone crazy. There’s no such thing as safety anymore, and Brad is fine with that, as long as his civil liberties aren’t infringed upon. I hate that line of thinking.”

“He seems like a nice guy.”

“He is. I’m sure Rand Paul and Wayne LaPierre are also nice. But I don’t want them running the country any more than I want Brad.”

Monty continued to laugh at me.

“It’s not funny!”

“It sort of is.”

I reached my cupped hand under the running water and splashed him. So he splashed me back.

“Hey!” I yelled.

“What!? I’m not allowed to defend myself? Don’t take away my civil liberties, Lucy!”

I was laughing now. "Please. You used to work for ACLU. I couldn't take away your civil liberties if I tried."

"But you love me anyway."Then he grasped both of my arms and pulled me in for a kiss. So I managed to forget about my righteous indignation for a while. And it's not something I hold onto most of the time, because like everyone, I have my day to get through.

 But now I know that I haven't been angry enough.  Tonight, when I looked in on my children, asleep and innocent in their beds, I realized this. Obama's strong words in the Rose Garden, the tears of the Sandy Hook Parents as they heard the Senate vote, the cry of "Shame" from a hero who is far more courageous than any Senator was that day - it all replayed inside my mind.

 I know I would trade a million tiny freedoms for the ability to keep my children safe from harm. I bet most parents would. Yet every day, for more and more parents, it’s too late to make that wish.

Two-Year-Old Quotes the Presidents

I love this video!

Rand Paul, Puke, and Desperation

I’m angry. My anger has been building, like a tower of blocks that wobbles and threatens to collapse. One more block could send me over the edge.

But let me backtrack a little.

At the beginning of March Monty was still on his two-week work trip to South Africa, and I was doing my best to fulfill my job responsibilities while being a single parent for half a month. Life has become even more complicated since I took on a new graduate student, named Brad. I am second reader for his thesis, and he was demanding my feedback. Like Rand Paul on the floor of the Senate, he wouldn’t stop until I agreed to give him some answers. He wanted to meet at the end of the day, the only time neither of us had class or other meetings.

“I can’t,” I texted him. “I need to pick my children up from daycare by 5:30.”

His electronic reply was instantaneous. “What about after they go to bed? I’ll come to you.”

I let my phone drop from my hand and onto my desk. As a rule, I stay away from compromising the boundaries between teacher and student. I don’t go out for drinks with my students after class on Friday afternoons, I don’t talk much about my own life during lectures, and I don’t get involved in my students’ personal problems. But when my own personal problems begin to compromise my professional responsibilities, it’s time to make an exception. Besides, I was feeling worn down.

“Okay,” I texted back, and I gave him a time and my address.

That night I put the kids to bed as early as I could. Then I cleaned up the dinner dishes, and trying to ignore my queasy stomach, I listened to the little television in the kitchen. CSPAN had on live coverage of Rand Paul’s filibuster, and I figured my nausea was a physical reaction to the hypocrisy of a gun rights zealot worrying about drone attacks while getting tons of media play. I turned off the TV and was just powering up my laptop when I heard Noah cry. I went upstairs to check on him, and discovered that he had thrown up.

So it was with a screaming, puking toddler that I answered the door five minutes later to Brad.

“I’m so sorry,” I said. “I would have called you but this just happened.  I don’t think tonight is going to work.”

Brad’s shiny, bald head wrinkled in concern. His broad shoulders and long legs took up my entire doorway, so when he stepped in I naturally stepped back.

“Poor little guy,” he said. “I have a son myself, so I know all about little kids and stomach flu.” He put his large hand on Noah’s tiny shoulder. “Hey, buddy. Not doing too well, huh?”

And here’s the funny thing: at that, Noah stopped crying. He just looked at Brad with admiring eyes and a trembling lip.

“Umm…” I stammered. “If you want to give me your flash drive I can download all the comments I made. Then you could go over them, and we could talk later?”

Brad was still cooing at Noah, offering him a crooked smile, trying to make him laugh. He broke out of it and said “Sure. Do want me to hold him while you do that?”

Not only did he hold gooey, stinky Noah while I downloaded the files, he took him into the kitchen and washed him up as well. I had just clicked “Save” and was ejecting Brad’s flash-drive from my computer when my stomach decided to do some ejecting of its own. I barely had time to say a jumbled “I’ll be right back,” before I raced to the bathroom and puked. I was sitting on the bathroom floor, really regretting my choice of spaghetti for dinner, when Brad came to check on me.

“Wow,” he said. “Now you’re sick. It’s too bad your husband isn’t here. When does he get back?”

I cleared the acid residue in my throat, trying to get the words out. “Not for another week.”

“Do you want me to stick around?” He laughed self-consciously. “Not for a week, obviously. But for an hour or so? I could try and get him back to sleep while you lie down.”

I should have said no. But I was so tired my eyelids felt like cement, and my stomach hadn’t had its final say.

So I said that would lovely. Lovely in a really nauseous sort of way.

That’s nothing to be angry about, right?

But the other day I read that the assault weapons ban was eliminated from Dianne Feinstein’s bill, because if it was left in, there wouldn’t have been the 60 votes needed from the senate simply to discuss it on the floor. And yeah, sure, they want to add it in as an amendment later on, but I’m not too optimistic about that.

I really thought that after Sandy Hook, this would finally be the time to get some gun control legislation through. Now it seems that if anything gets passed, it will focus on background checks and increased security. Lame.

So I was fuming over the injustice and the misguided values of our nation when Brad stopped by my office. We’re friends now; I guess nothing bonds two people like puke and desperation.

“You okay?” He asked. “You look sort of tense.”

I rubbed at the joints of my jaw and tried to unclench. “I’m just so mad about the gun control bill!”

He raised his eyebrows in question, so I explained the issue.

“And can you believe this wasn’t even big-headline news? Yet when Rand Paul did his filibuster about hypothetical drone attacks, the media couldn’t stop talking about it.”

Brad rubbed his hands and wove his fingers together. “Actually, I didn’t disagree with Rand Paul. I thought he had a good point.”

“Oh please. Rand Paul is pretending to be something that he’s not.”

Brad opened his mouth to speak, but I continued before he could.

“Rand Paul’s filibuster wasn’t about John Brennan, and it wasn’t about the government’s power to use drone attacks against Americans on American soil. It was about Rand Paul.”

“I think that’s a little simplistic,” Brad interjected.

“Simplistic!” Now my blood was heating up. I leaned forward, pressing my weight against my arms. “The only time the government has had a policy of killing Americans on American soil was during the Civil War. Yet every day more and more innocent Americans are killed in random shootings. Rand Paul has an “A” rating from the NRA. He is more worried about protecting our rights to do bad things than he is about the bad things themselves.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” said Brad.

“Oh come on. He doesn’t care about protecting people.” I tapped my pencil against my desk, emphasizing my most salient points. “He says he’s for civil rights, yet he opposes parts of the Civil Rights Act. He wants to get rid of the department of education. And like every Republican, he supposedly wants to return to the party of Lincoln. But you know what? When Abraham Lincoln helped found the Republican Party, they actually promoted equality. And one way to promote equality today is through public education.”

Brad crossed his arms defiantly. “So are we talking about gun rights, civil rights, or education? Because I’m not following you…”

I sighed. “We’re talking about the hypocrisy of Rand Paul. Look. In Lincoln’s time, Republicans believed in setting limits, so that the wealthy slave owners couldn’t buy up all the land and leave the yeoman with nothing. They supported higher taxes to promote economic growth. Neither of those stances fall in line with Rand Paul’s platform. He believes in free enterprise and unlimited trade.”

I continued to tap my pencil against the desk with increasing intensity. “People call him a Libertarian, and Libertarians are against the government imposing on our personal lives. Yet Rand Paul is against gay marriage. He’s even supported the constitutional amendment against it, and now he’s proposed a bill to outlaw abortion by protecting the rights of the unborn. All these things add up to a guy who claims to be different and more diverse in his thinking than your typical Republican. But he is actually just a pretentious hypocrite.” With that I let go of my pencil, and without my tapping the room fell silent.

Brad looked away and took a moment before he spoke. But when he did, he looked right back at me. “You obviously know your stuff. But you’re being too concrete. Politics change with the time. So must our thinking.”

With that he got up and left, without telling me his original reason for stopping by. I sat for a moment, contemplating, and then I got up, went down the hall, and into my friend Sally’s office.

“You never told me that Brad was a Tea Partier.” She looked up at me in shock. “Is that why you can’t be his advisor anymore?”

“No!” she laughed. “And I don’t think he is a Tea Party guy.”

I stood with my hands on my hips. “Okay. But why did you have to quit?”

Sally bit her lip and her eyes darted around the room. If she wasn’t a good friend I would have really demanded answers.

“I told you I can’t say,” she mumbled.

I heaved a sigh and walked out. Now I’m trying to figure out if I’m helping a really nice guy start his career, or if I’m inserting someone ideologically opposed to me into the political arena. Maybe it’s both.

But I have figured out that Brad is more than what he originally seemed.

 I suppose you could say my anger is unfounded, or misdirected, or even unwarranted. But I don’t care. I don’t care if I’m letting my anger show like a bad, contagious rash. Sometimes you have to stop pretending, and just be who you are.

 

 

Marco Rubio, Dry Mouth, and the Invisible Primary

            Returning to the real world after our trip to D.C. was rough but necessary. Everyone knows that unlike the inauguration, everyday events in D.C. are no fairytale. Life is messy no matter where you live.

            So I was back in my campus office at the end of the first week of the second term, when my friend/colleague Sally came knocking on my door.

            “I need to ask you something,” she said.

            I didn’t even look up, because Sally and I are always asking each other for things, and I didn’t notice the urgency in her voice right away.

            “What’s up?” I asked, still focussed on editing the PowerPoint for my afternoon lecture.

            “Do you remember Brad Nelson, my grad student in public policy?”

            I did remember him. Brad had been Sally’s TA for the last year, and he was working on his thesis partially under her advisement.

            “Of course. Why?”

            With her hands clenched together and hanging at her waist, she took a giant step towards me. “Will you be second reader for his thesis? I have to bow out.” Now I did look up, and her face was sort of pinched and red, like what she said was causing her pain.

            I paused, cautious and skeptical. “Isn’t the subject of his thesis subject really more your area of expertise than mine?”

            She shrugged her tense shoulders. “It could be yours too. His dissertation is on public opinion, policy development, and their effects on the American presidency.”

            “That’s pretty broad.” I looked at her, and she stood there, uncomfortable as a televised speaker desperate for a glass of water. I longed to put her out of her misery and give her a drop or two, but it wasn’t that easy.  Agreeing to be a second reader is a major time commitment, and I barely know Brad.

            I had to ask. “Why do you need to bow out?”

            She took a sharp inhale. “I can’t say.”

            I widened my eyes and gave her an incredulous look, and she hung her head. “I’m sorry, Lucy. I hate to put you in this position. I’d tell you if I could, but I can’t, so please… Say you’ll at least meet with him?”

            I tilted my head to the side and offered up half a smile. “Sure. I guess I can meet with him. But I’m not committing to anything more than that." Sally and I set up a time for the following week, and she said she’d let Brad know.

        That night as we were preparing for bed I told Monty about it. He reclined against his pillow, but spoke with conviction.

            “Are you crazy? You’re always complaining about how busy you are! And if Sally won’t even tell you why she’s stepping aside, I’d run the other way, as fast as possible.”

            “I know…” I sighed.  I was next to him, sitting up, and fighting the urge to collapse into sleep before I explained my case. “But Sally seemed, I don’t know, distressed. Like she wouldn’t be asking me if she didn’t absolutely have to. Besides, it’s hard to convince anyone to be your thesis advisor. I feel bad for this guy.”

            “But you barely know him. And doesn’t he already have an advisor?”

            “He needs two. Anyway, all I said is that I’d meet with him.”

            Monty stretched and rolled over, trying to find a good resting position. With his eyes closed, he said, “Well, be careful. Don’t get yourself into something you’ll regret.”

            I gave him a gentle kick with my socked foot. “Thanks, Bossy.”

            He opened his eyes and rolled towards me. “Hey. You asked.”

            “Umm, no. I don’t think I did.”

Why is it that men always equate talking about your day to asking for advice?  I said nothing more, gave him a kiss on the cheek, turned the lights out, and settled in for the night. But my mind wouldn’t slow down. Does campaigning ever really stop?

            It seems impossible to believe that the 2012 election was over a mere three months ago, because, for better or for worse, the 2016 election is already underway.  Maybe it’s not obvious to everyone, but the “invisible primary” began even as the last of the streamers were getting picked up and thrown out on the morning of November 7^th.

            Things didn’t always happen this fast. But in the 1970s, post-Watergate, Congress had this idea that they could and should remove corruption from politics. This resulted in the FEC and then a Supreme Court case because James Buckley felt that his rights to expression and due process were being limited. The end result was that while candidates have to disclose who their donors are, and individual contributions are limited, the court decided to strike down all limitations on campaign expenses, donations by groups, and use of candidates' personal funds.

            So insiders have the advantage, because insiders can raise a lot more money than outsiders can. With primaries getting scheduled earlier and earlier in the year, a boat load of money is needed RIGHT AWAY in the actual primary season. Candidates know they have to win in Iowa or New Hampshire so they can gain momentum, and get the press and public on their side. If they don’t, their campaigns die a quick, quiet death, the likes of Tim Pawlenty and John Huntsman. Remember them? Yeah, I didn’t think so.

            Marco Rubio has been campaigning in this invisible primary, competing for the most early donations, the most good press, and the most talent to work on his campaign, so he can win the legitimate, visible primary early and definitively. It had been going pretty well. He’s seen as a moderate, sort of, because of his views on immigration, even though his views on everything else have the Tea Party asking him to their soirees. He’s young, he’s from Florida, he can possibly attract Latino voters, and he can even reference rap lyrics and compare Tupac to Biggie Small.

            The Republicans decided HE was the guy to deliver their response to Obama’s State of the Union address, and if you’re not aware of how it went, then you’ve been living in a cave without cable. Some pundits believe Rubio’s presidential aspirations are ruined, that his now infamous water bottle moment is buried in the same graveyard as Howard Dean’s “I Have a Scream” speech, Richard Nixon’s flop sweat during the 1960s debate against Kennedy, and the Bobby Jindal impersonation of 30 Rock’s Kenneth during his own Republican response to the State of the Union back in 2009.

            I’m no Rubio fan, but I’m not ready to discount him quite yet. Uncomfortable, awkward moments are bound to happen. The real test is how you handle the fall out. Rubio’s people handled it by selling “Rubio Water Bottles” for a donation of anything between $25 to $250 to his PAC. So far, they’ve raised over $125,000.

            It remains to be seen if this will be enough to make people forget. If it will be enough to make Rubio win. But it is possible to come back.

            So I remembered this the following week when Brad Nelson sat in my office and explained his thesis to me. Tall, broad, and bald, he took up the entire room even though he fit neatly into a chair. Still, the light seemed to bounce right off of him, and his energy and enthusiasm were nearly tangible enough to touch while he expounded up Bill Clinton and political triangulation.

            I tapped a pencil against my desk, trying to resist being drawn in. But I found myself responding to his zest.

            “Your topic sounds really interesting,” I said. “I just don’t know if I’m the right person to help you.”

            He leaned forward, elbows on knees. “You won’t have to do that much. Just be second reader for a semester, that’s all.”

            “You’re in the one year program?”

            He nodded his head fervently. “Nothing against academics, but I’m not looking to teach.” He smiled self-consciously. “You probably think I’m too old to pursue this, don’t you?”

            I laughed. “Not at all. I was in my thirties when I started back.”

            He raised one eyebrow. “How old are you now?”

            “42.”

            Then he raised both his eyebrows. “I would have guessed you at a decade younger.”
           
            I smiled. “You’re very kind.” Actually, he reminded me a little bit of myself ten years ago, but I wasn’t going to tell him that. My stomach fluttered as I asked my next question. “Can you tell me what happened with Sally as your second reader? She wouldn’t say. Is there anything I need to know?” Like, why this odd, awkward situation is even happening.

            His face went blank. “No,” he replied. There was no dry mouth, no beads of sweat creeping down his forehead, no desperate grasp for a drink of water. There was no awkwardness from him at all. But why? Or more to the point, why not?

            I kept my eyes focused on him, silently compelling him to keep talking. “She didn’t give me a reason,” he said. “She just said she couldn’t continue.”

            I nodded and looked down. A setback like this could cost him so much, but it shouldn't, not when he has so much to offer.

            “Let me see your schedule again,” I said. “Let’s see what we can figure out.”

 

 

An Incomplete Journey

            Four years ago we elected our first black president. And after eight years of George Bush, we also elected a Democrat. Most of all, we trusted Obama, as if our country was a baby and we were leaving it with him, the most promising babysitter in the world, for the first time.

The result?  Well, he hasn’t yet taught this baby to walk and talk. After all, Afghanistan is crippling, Guantanamo renders it mute, and jobs and the economy, while still alive, fail to thrive. But…healthcare and the motor industry promise to expand learning opportunities, and Osama Bin Laden, the biggest bully in the world, will bother us no more. Sure, not everything is perfect, but what parent in their right mind can expect one babysitter to provide her child with everything it needs or desires? At some point, we need to take responsibility for ourselves and that which we hold most dear.

This is why Obama’s reelection is every bit as monumental as was his original placement into office. Bringing him back for another four years says something. It wasn’t a fluke that we hired him. We weren’t just trying to be politically correct after eight years with Bush. We chose Obama because of the promise he offers, and we continue to place our future in his hands.

So it was no small thing, getting to go to his inauguration. It has been a dream of mine to see a president inaugurated, and Monty made it happen. So there Monty and I were, celebrating four years of marriage and a future we believe in, and we were to spend a week, alone together, in our beautiful hotel room at the Four Seasons in DC.

 What did we do first? That’s easy. We fought.

A week prior to our trip I told Monty that I was unwilling to consider moving to New York so he could work for a law firm there. “Exhaust all the possibilities here in Seattle first,” I said. “Then we can talk about moving.”

He didn’t put up much of a fight. I found out why later on. Turns out he was saving his energy for a new round.

Two days before we left for DC he mentioned, casually, that he would be leaving for South Africa at the end of February, and he’d be there for two weeks to work with government officials and policy makers on the logistics of, among other things, the malaria vaccine.

“But you said you weren’t travelling there again. You promised.”

Monty shrugged his shoulders as he stood over the sink, rinsing off dinner plates. “I have to be able to do my job. And if I’m not allowed to look for a new one, then I’d better do the one I have right now well.”

I swallowed hard. Then Noah began to cry because he’d hit head against the coffee table, so I walked away to fetch him, leaving this battle for another time.

Then my parents got to town, and we were preparing to leave for a week, and there was no good time to talk about it, not until we had a moment alone.

The second the door to our hotel room swung shut I dropped my suitcase on the floor, and faced this man who, four years ago, promised me a life full of hope and change. Now, two children and a million little decisions made together later, I still only want to say yes to him, and it infuriates me when he puts me in a position where  I am forced to say no.

“I’m so angry at you.” I said.

He sighed in exasperation and went to open the curtains, flooding our room with light. There he stood, with his back to me looking out the window, and said nothing.

“Are you going to say anything?” I demanded.

He stayed still and silent. So I went over and pushed him. He lost his balance and stumbled in surprise, and in the process he was forced to look at me.

“Hey!” he said.

“I’m trying to talk to you.”

“About my work trip?”

“Yes,” I said.

“There’s nothing to talk about, Lucy. I’m going, and I have nothing more to say about it.”

“Well I do!” I replied.

Monty backed away, and sat on the edge of the bed. “Fine, then say it.” His mouth formed into a grim, tight little line and his eyes narrowed - not exactly the face of a receptive listener.

“You promised,” I said. “You promised you wouldn’t go back. And now you are.”

He raised his eyebrows in response and I felt like we were in a staring contest. I placed my hands on my hips and took a deep breath. I wasn’t about to give in easily on this one.

“Your health is at stake,” I continued. “It’s not like I’m being petty. I want to keep you around. What don’t you get about that?”

He silently continued his death stare into my eyes, but after a moment he broke. His shoulders sagged and he looked away, towards the artwork hanging on the opposite wall.

I went on. “And your reasoning, that you’re ‘not allowed’ to look for another job, is completely unfair. There are plenty of law firms in Seattle you could work for. Have you even looked into any of them?”

At first I thought he was going to continue with his silent treatment and not answer, but thankfully he dropped the sullen teenager routine. In a soft, controlled voice he said, “I don’t want another job. I want the one I have.”

“But we talked about it, and we agreed…”

“No!” Now Monty stood up and over me. “You talked, and I didn’t disagree. But the more I think about it, the more I am not okay with this ultimatum you gave. It’s unfair, and I refuse to be treated like a child.”

I took a step back. “Excuse me?”

“It’s South Africa, Luce. I won’t have to take the same sort of medication this time, and I’ll either be in Johannesburg or Pretoria for the entire trip. There’s no risk! And it would be nice if you’d trust me and respect that I’m an adult who can take care of himself.”

I had pushed him once already, and I wanted to push him again and again, until that superior look was erased from his face. But I believe reasonable discourse is the best way to solve problems, so I yelled at him instead. “Do you remember the state you came home in last time? Do you remember how sick you were? Because I sure as hell do! And while you were gone, every day, your mother is like ‘It’s unsafe. Tell him to come home!’ As if I could reach you! As if you’d care or listen to me even if I could! I knew there was no way you’d come home even if I begged you to, and I was right. Because now you’re going back. So if you think it was easy for me to make this demand, if you think I made it lightly, then you don’t know me at all!”

I ran my fingers through my hair and sniffed back the tears I had only just noticed were falling. Then I turned away and did something I’m not proud of.  I went into the bathroom, slammed the door and sat on the floor and wept.

Two or three minutes later he knocked, and entered without waiting for a response. He looked around. “Wow,” he said. “There’s a phone and a TV in here. Fancy.” Then he grabbed a tissue from the box on the counter, sat, and gave me the tissue to wipe my eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he said. His voice was supple and conciliatory, and it made me feel like we were friends again, even though I was holding tight to my anger.  “But if you had begged me, I would have come home. You never said anything. I didn’t even know what you were going through.”

“I don’t believe you.” I sniffed and blew my nose into the tissue.

“Lucy.” He said my name like it was a plea. He waited until I looked up and met his eyes before he continued. “Come on,” he whispered. “It is true, and I do know you, and you know me. I have to believe that. Because if it’s not true, then my whole life is a joke.”

He reached out a cautious hand, and placed it on top of my head. When I didn’t dart him away, he smiled a little and combed his fingers through my hair.

“Listen,” he said and scooted closer. “I’ll have cell phone reception the entire time. We can talk every day. And I promise, if you think for any reason that I need to come home, then I will. No questions asked.”

That wasn’t the end of the argument, but it was the beginning of the end of it. And don’t worry; we didn’t spend the entire trip fighting. Instead, we got this conflict out of the way first so we could kiss, make up, let go, and enjoy the rest of our alone time together.

On Monday night I put on my ball gown and I felt like I was finally going to prom. Except we went to the Ambassador’s Ball, where we held each other close and danced under dimmed chandelier lights. Monty also introduced me to the ambassadors and diplomats from several African nations. He’d worked with many of them at some point, even if was just over the telephone. Others had only heard of him. But standing there, witnessing these conversations, I began to understand why he can’t just give up on this job that he loves, and I was reminded that it was his passion for justice that made me fall in love with him in the first place.

That’s not to say I feel 100% okay about him going, or about how everything was resolved.

But I’ve gotten ahead of myself here.

On Monday morning we sat, bundled up with my hands in his pockets, and we witnessed Obama being sworn into office for the second time. At the end, on his way out, Obama turned and looked out at the crowd. People walked past him, yet he just stood, like a parent trying to stop time with his baby before some magical moment disappeared. And while I was too far away to hear, I guess he said “I’m not going to see this again.”

What sort of wisdom does it take, to remember to look back while you are compelled to move forward?  I wish I had that wisdom, and I wish I had the strength and the power to give myself, and those I hold dear, everything they need and desire. But there’s nothing to stop me from trying.

 

Photo from Bakersfield for Obama on Facebook.com 

 

 

 

 

The Hastert Rule

 

On January second, after the New Year was rung in and all the Christmas decorations were taken down, I went to my campus office even though I didn’t need to. Classes don’t resume until February, but I wanted to retreat to a place that’s mine and mine alone.

Our trip home to Iowa had some bumps in the road, including a Christmas fraught with tension, bloodshed and drama. I’m not exaggerating, and the bloodshed was my own. It all had to do with a food-processor, minced fingertips, and the realization that I’m done trying to appease people. In fact, it’s my New Year’s resolution.

You can try and work with others, but in the end they will still cast themselves as the negotiator and cast you as the villain. Take for example Obama and the “fiscal cliff.” Liberals were laying on the pressure, ready to pounce if Obama went back on his campaign promise of raising taxes for the wealthy. Even though Obama loosened his standards for what wealthy is, he more or less stuck to his guns after weeks of obstinate talks with Boehner. But both sides got some of what they wanted.

Yet Texas Senator Cornyn’s editorial in the Houston Chronicle tells a different story. Obama has for “the fourth time in two years stalled and delayed on critical policy actions,” and “…the White House has purposefully slow-walked the process into a shameless attempt to score cheap political points,” and “…the biggest fiscal problem in Washington is excessive spending not nonsufficient taxation,” and “…it may be necessary to partially shut down the government in order to secure the long-term fiscal well-being of our country.”

Huh? So this is all Obama’s fault? He is the one who is acting on politics instead of policy, and if he doesn’t fall in line, the government will be shut down? Wow. How can two people (Senator Cornyn and myself) see the same issue so completely differently?

I don’t get it, which is why it’s good I never went into politics myself. Now February promises more strife between the White House and Congress, and only time will tell how far both sides will let the stakes escalate. That’s the problem; once a line has been drawn in the sand, it takes the wind, or the tide, or a storm to erase it, unless someone is willing to shuffle over that line themselves.

And I know all too well that once someone draws a line, they don’t want to shuffle over it.

Anyway, on Wednesday I was looking over my syllabi for next semester when there was a light knock on my partially opened door. I looked up to see my friend Sally, who also teaches in the Politic Science department, standing in the entrance to my office.

“Hi!” I effused. “I didn’t think anyone else would be here.”

Sally shrugged her shoulders and entered my space. Dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt, her hair pulled back and without makeup, she looked young enough to be a student rather than a professor. “I needed to get out of the house.” She plopped down on my Pottery Barn armchair. That chair was a splurge a couple of years ago, but I wanted to make my office homey and pleasant, and it matched perfectly with the tan blinds and the yellowish floor lamps I had previously purchased.

“I know what you mean,” I told her. “I could never be a stay-at-home mom. I mean I love my kids, but after a while…”

“After a while you get restless.”

“Yes.” I pushed away my keyboard and swiveled my office chair towards her. “How was your Christmas?”

“Fine.” She furrowed her brow and looked down at my bandaged hand. “What happened to you?”

I sighed. “On Christmas day I was helping my brother-in-law Jack figure out why the food processor wasn’t working. He plugged it in when my hand wasn’t completely out…”

“Ouch!” Sally grabbed her own fingers in the thought of such pain and trauma. “How awful.”

“It was. For everyone. Especially since Jack and I were already arguing. Now he feels terrible, but he’s still holding a grudge. I guess we both are.”

“Oh. Do you want to talk about it?” Sally looked at me with compassion, and I realized how convoluted my story must sound.

“Not really. Not about that. There’s something worse going on, actually.”

She tilted her head as if to say “go on,” so I did. “Monty wants me to consider the option of moving. Relocating. He’s worried that if he can’t travel for his job he’ll be reassigned to general council, and become nothing more than a glorified HR guy. Meanwhile, a friend in New York knows about an opening in this firm that sounds great…” I waved my hand, still gauze-wrapped to protect my healing fingertips, in the air to finish my statement.

“Huh.” Sally leaned back and kept her face neutral. “So what did you say?”

“What could I say? I don’t want to move. But it’s because of my ultimatum that he’s not travelling any more. If it was up to him, he’d keeping going, his health be damned. So I don’t know. The only thing we can agree on is that we won’t entertain the option of splitting up. After that, there’s not a lot of common ground.”

“Wow,” said Sally. “And I thought my Christmas with my arguing children and visiting relatives was stressful.”

I smiled in response and gazed around my office. Could I really give this up? I’ve spent years building a career here, and I love my students, the staff, and the subjects I teach. Monty says he understands, and all he asks is that I remain open to the idea of living somewhere else. “There are other places you could teach, you know. Or you could write, or get involved in local politics. You know there’s a ton of things you could do.”

He said this to me, and I replied. “Well, there are a ton of things you could do here in the Seattle area. Have you even looked for other jobs around here?”

He shook his head, and we pretty much left it at that. I pushed the memory of our conversation away and put my attention back on Sally.

“Do you know the Hastert rule?” I asked her.

Sally gave me a perplexed look before answering me. “You mean former Speaker of the House Dennis Hassert’s rule that a ‘majority of the majority’ needs to approve of something before the House can vote on it?”

“Yes,” I said. “Boehner broke that rule on the fiscal cliff vote, but what else could he do? Now his party is furious with him, and he’s lost his standing with Republicans, and he even came close to not being voted in again as Speaker.”

“Yeah, I know. But we’re both happy about that, aren’t we?” asked Sally.

I looked down at my bandaged hand. “I’m not sure, exactly. It just seems like certain rules should be followed, you know? Even though people are never going to agree on what those rules are, and they’re certainly never going to see eye to eye on all the issues. I just wish there was a format Monty and I could follow on this. One that would keep up safe from total government shut-down.”

“But didn’t you just say you both agreed, absolutely, that you’re staying together?”

I nodded my head. “Yeah. But that doesn’t mean there won’t be outrage that crosses party lines.”

Sally shook her head at me. “You worry too much. It’s going to be fine.”

So I laughed at myself and we agreed to forget about work that day, and we went and got lunch instead. A chance to talk and catch up did me a world of good. It made me feel like I could represent my own interests without breaking any promises.