The Race is On

I have a secret obsession with politics - or, rather, the game of politics. I loathe politicians as a general rule, but the psychology of it all fascinates me - and has since I was in the 5th grade and my teacher did a segment on the upcoming presidential election. I remember running home and telling my mom that the Republican candidate was going to win, because the Democratic candidate only got one vote in our class.

Oddly enough, the kid that voted differently from everyone else disappeared into oblivion several years later - small towns in homogenous states do that to you - you dare say something different, you become invisible. Even in the 5th grade.

My passion grew and grew and grew - leading me to briefly consider a career as a press person on the Hill. After speaking with several such people, I realized that my passion wasn't great enough to sacrifice my life to "handling" a politician 24 hours a day. I shelved my grand high school ambitions of running for some office when I married Himself. I couldn't imagine the nuclear fallout if his skeletons rattled out of their storage unit.

These days, my passion for politics is confined primarily to my own reading and internal debates. Himself thinks the whole thing is ridiculous, and rarely will engage in any topic of conversation relating to it (It was, in fact, a huge surprise to me that several years into our relationship, I discovered that my political views differ greatly from the few Himself hold). My political junky friends no longer live close enough to me to engage in off-the-cuff discussions. I thought I was sick of the '08 election season before it even started.

Lately, however, I've been sucked into the frenzy once again. One of my favorite authors, Richard North Patterson, came out with a new book, The Race. It is a well-written, engaging novel about a tightly contested primary race - with some real life characters only thinly veiled as fiction. I devoured it in only a couple of days, comparing the behind-the-scenes look at the glistening, pre-packaged soundbites we see.

Then, last night, I had a rare night - Baby Girl was asleep, the kitchen was cleaned up, the living room was clean, and I actually sat down to watch TV (usually the TV is something that fills up the silent void I can't stand, not something I actually watch).

I watched nothing intellectually stimulating - I was a rubbernecker, switching between The Late Show with David Letterman (which I typically prefer - but WHAT THE HECK is up with the man's beard?!) and The Tonight Show (who had more appeal last night, since it was done sans writers) to see the potentially interesting outcome after being off-air for 2 months. Mike Huckabee was on Leno, which was the reason I ended up watching The Tonight Show except during commercials.

I was fascinated. I love watching politicians on something other than their "stumping" grounds or official speeches. To me, the true measure of a person is who he/she is when (at least some of) the formalities are stripped away. Himself was sitting next to me, in awe that I was actually still awake late enough to watch the late shows. At one point I turned to him and said, "You know, the caucuses are tomorrow in Iowa - I'm actually excited to find out what will happen, everything is so close." Himself looked at me as if I was crazy.

The race is on ... and I'm back to being obsessed. At least for the moment.