Tuesday, July 06, 2004
Things political
My Catholic Republican lunch of last week has paid some dividends. A parishioner introduced himself to me in between Masses this weekend, asking me how I enjoyed last Monday. We had a good chat about making a difference locally, he with his party involvement, I with ministry.
It gave me a moment to reflect on my initial involvement in campus politics (my candidate finished fourth, fifteen votes behind a dog) then to two years working for the university's development office, and then into parish ministry. My involvement in my parish bloomed about the same time as my interest in politics. In the long run, I found parish liturgy far more conducive than politics. Especially given that dog thing.
Who knows how the timeline would have been affected if my friend Brian had outpolled the dog, or if my alma mater had taken me more seriously as an employee?
I like the choice of John Edwards. I've never known such a drastic change-of-life, but I think that is an advantage for him. As the Democratic primaries began to weed out candidates, I thought he had potentially more appeal than Kerry, whom I still dislike.
Aside from approving of the VP candidate choice, I must point out the decidedly un-democratic way vice-presidential candidates are selected. As long as the office is in the feeding chain, mainly meaning the inside track for the next open presidential race, these choices are too important to be made by the presidential candidate and his advisors. People of the party should be making the decision, not the candidate. A presidential candidate should be able to work with the people's choice, or simply, get out of politics. I'm amazed that this de facto line of succession (Dan Quayle excepted) has been allowed to stand as long as it has. Well, maybe not amazed on second thought: no one ever said the Two Party system was inherently democratic.
