Cleaning Up After Battle of Mudville

Note: This column was created using the new computer software MacBlather. Because my deadline preceded the election returns, I didn’t have to program in those boring specifics.

Well, it ain’t over till it’s over, and it is actually over. All over America fat ladies are singing. But there is no joy in Mudville because mighty you-know-who has struck out.

Today, we armchair quarterbacks and backseat drivers and pundits and poets try to answer the question: Why? Why, when a candidate had so much going for him, does he end up dropping the ball?

I think the candidate himself said it all in that moving speech before a hushed audience of battle-weary campaign workers. (Many consider it his best speech of the campaign.) Who will ever forget that young woman in the audience, with tears running down her face, mouthing the words: “I love you.” We could read her lips, all right.

And her point was well taken. Support does not end on election night. Belief is more than winning a contest. The things that young woman learned in campaign ’88 will stay with her the rest of her life. The point is you can work hard, you can go the extra mile, you can be on the side of the angels and still come up with zip.

A few other things struck me as I watched the coverage of the election returns, switching back and forth between the various channels and my refrigerator. First, that computers will malfunction. As the old saying goes, “Deep doodoo happens.” Second, that sometimes Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw and Sam Donaldson have very little to say. And finally, that we need to throw out the tortillas that are turning blue in the fridge.

But one more thing needs to be said about this election. We’ve got to stop those polls that predict winners even before the polling places in California close. Every year people say this--but nothing gets done. Whatsa matter? Is everybody out there just a zombie screaming, “Miller Lite! Miller Lite!”?

One thing this election proves beyond anything else: In a contest between two men, only one may win, and one must lose. And now it is time for the loser to lick his wounds, to pick up his marbles and go home, and if he is half the statesman I think he is, to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. He can start goofing off. He’s in an enviable position.

The winner, on the other hand, has only just begun. He must prove himself to be more than a vote-getter. He’s got to actually do something, and his first act proved one thing: He’s got a prayer. But we need more than prayer if we are to grow and prosper as a nation. We need bread. And circuses.

It’s easy to see now, with hindsight, what went wrong for the loser. If only he’d run a different ad, if only he’d had a different message, if only his handlers were better than the President-elect’s handlers. If only he’d been a different person in a different place in a different time. Oh well, you can’t win ‘em all. So go figure.

As for the new President, he’s got his work cut out for him. Following a well-deserved rest, I think we’ll see him move slowly to take over the reins of power. Nobody expects him to get up on a white horse with a white hat and say, “Ya-ha! I won! We’re No. 1! We’re No. 1!”

But with the whole world watching, we can say today, democracy has prevailed once again. Our system may not be perfect, but it’s the only system we’ve got. Put that in your vodka glass and go chugalug it, Mr. Gorbachev.

And now it’s time that we the people put this negative campaign behind us. It’s time to forget all those silly hypothetical questions about what if the candidate died or what if the candidate’s wife were raped and murdered.

It’s time to ask ourselves the only real question left from the long and winding road of campaign ‘88: How did we end up with these guys?