February 18, 2008
Monday

Has anyone checked the temperatures in hell lately? They must be falling, because I have said, more than once, that it would be a cold day there when I found myself agreeing with local newspaper columnist Nancy Eshelman. She’s a sour-tongued, acerbic writer whose social criticism often comes across as whining. She used to regularly slam teachers as overpaid, underworked ingrates who weren’t worth the space and the taxpayer expense they took up, but that particular ax has not been sharpened in recent years. Instead, she has railed against people who drive SUVs, non-smokers who like pollution-free public places, and people who take more lavish vacations than she is able to. I rarely agree with her, and when I do, it is definitely a call for comment.

In yesterday’s newspaper she confesses that she is weary of the run-up to the presidential election. “I want to fast-forward to November because I simply cannot take anymore politicking,” she wrote. Oh say it, sister! Me too!! Me too!! Then she talked about the recent flap over remarks made by Pennsylvania’s governor, Ed Rendell, who has three more years to serve in his second term before I don’t have to think about him anymore.

I can’t stand Ed Rendell, as I made clear on the occasion of his first inauguration. My dislike of him is personal, not political. I’m not very politically savvy and tend, even now in my old age when I should know better, to respond to a candidate from the heart rather than the head. As I wrote in both 2003 and 2006, my dislike of him stems from an anecdote told about him which is supposed to illustrate what a fun guy he is but which showed me only that he can be cruel and uncaring, especially when it comes to individuals with disabilities. I might have voted for him in 2006, but once again, his attitude offended me when he suggested that casinos in Pennsylvania (his pet project) would help improve the “gray lives” of older Pennsylvanians. 

Rendell, a Democrat, has endorsed Hillary Clinton. When asked about Barack Obama’s chances in Pennsylvania, Rendell said, “You’ve got conservative whites here, and I think there are some whites who are probably not ready to vote for an African-American candidate.”

Given public reaction to that remark, you might think that he’d uttered words as offensive as those recently offered by Jane Fonda. He was called a racist and accused of irresponsibility in making the remark, since he should have known it would ignite a firestorm. And as in the Fonda flap and the Kathleen Deveny debacle and the Janet Jackson breast brouhaha, the comments quickly turned away from the issues of substance and became sniping about personalities.

Forgotten in all of this is what both Nancy Eshelman and I believe: Ed Rendell is right. He didn’t condemn people who feel unable to vote for a candidate simply because the candidate is black, he merely said that such people exist. Some people won’t vote for a female candidate, a candidate from a religion they don’t trust or know much about, or a candidate not from the political party they’ve always supported. As Eshelman says, to recognize these facts doesn’t make you a racist or a sexist. It makes you a realist. I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Get Old Scratch a sweater!

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