It smells like crumpled suits and shiny shoes. Hair gel and soap from the Hampton Inn. A hint of aftershave. An odd aroma off gum covering the breakfast of coffee and campaign trail biscuits, and...what's that? A whiff of tobacco, the cigarette quietly smoked outside the campaign bus in the predawn gloom while the press isn't watching, just to kind of take the edge off?
It must be a politician on campaign, arriving at the shipyard to press some palms and remind us to vote for him to be our Champion, lest the government decide that everything is groovy and we don't need a Navy anymore.
I've seen a number of state politicians grace the 46th street gate, but today it was none other than Mr. Ed Gillespie, Virginia's republican candidate for US Senator, going up against Mark Warner.
He shook my hand, asked for my vote, to which I said "okay" though I don't intend to vote for him, but then I stopped and asked him a question: "What are you going to do about global warming"?
It was a question in honor of my Dad, who for a time would always answer those political questionnaires congressmen and women use to stay in touch with the constituents with a single query: "What are you going to do about global warming"? No one has ever answered him.
So it was Ed Gillespie's turn. To his immense credit he stood there and actually answered the question, answered it honestly. He recited a list of facts about how the US has worked very hard to lower emissions and make industry cleaner, but then said he wouldn't shut down our coal fired power plants if China was going to continue to build their own coal plants.
It's a valid stance to take from an economic perspective, but I don't agree with him. I believe that global warming is real, and while I understand there are natural shifts in global temperature I have to believe that human activity is a contributing factor, though the question is to what extent. I just think there are too many of us, we use too many resources, we spew too much shit into the air. I believe at a certain point the Earth's ecosystems are not robust enough to handle it. What is hard to guess at is the actual impact that global warming will have, how dire it will actually be. I fear we are going to find out in the not too distant future, a future we have probably missed our chance as a global community to change. Now we deal with the consequences.
Fun, yeah?
Anyway, so there is your answer Dad. The answer is: not much.
But I didn't tell Ed any of this. I knew he wanted to get back to greeting shipyard workers so I wished him luck, shook his hand again, and let him be.
And I left thinking: "I kind of like that guy."
Contrast that with Mark Warner, and this horrible add which aired during Virginia Tech's debacle against Miami on Thursday night.
There are three things about this add that just make my insides writhe like a Slytherin Snake:
First, there is the statement that Frank Beamer said getting into the ACC was the best thing that ever happened to Tech, and Bruce Smith's confident assertion that coach is always right.
No! No no no no NO! Tech rose to prominence in the Big East, and their early domination of the ACC was a function of their rise to national fame which happened in a different conference. Since joining the ACC I would argue that the Hokies have been in a very slow decline, and now we've settled into the miasma of mediocrity that most ACC football teams demonstrate week in and week out.
Beamer is always right? No! As the team has fallen apart over the last two years the best that Frank can do is make twisted faces of utter disbelief on the sideline. "How can we playing this poorly"? they seem to ask. I don't know Frank, you are the coach, how can they? Great guy and we owe a lot to him, but after this season he should be encouraged to retire so that he can go open a few more restaurants or write that romance novel that has been rattling around in his head for the past few years. All things must end, and I hope that Thursday night was the death knell of Frank Beamer's tenure. Let us move on.
Third (and most important): Why do I care if Mark Warner was instrumental in getting Tech into the ACC? Even if I thought it was the right thing to do (which I didn't) and it had all turned out swimmingly, what does that matter? Sure, it is something a governor should maybe do, if he can, but is that really the feather in the cap? With endless war in the middle east, with Ebola sowing West Africa with death, with income disparity increasing, with the country's social fabric stretching and tearing, with the nation's finances in ruins, what does it matter if Tech got into the ACC or not? Should we really be voting for any politician because he helped some football team change conferences? That doesn't buy my allegiance, Mr. Warner. A box of a dozen Krispy Kremes would, but that does not.
And I stopped watching the add thinking: "I kind of don't like that guy".
Well. I am still voting for Mark Warner, even though his stock has gone down in my book by a lot. It's more because I don't agree with Ed Gillespie's policies and economics that anything else, and Mark Warner's alternatives are things I tend to agree more with. That is a good reason to cast a ballot for or against a candidate, rather than some damned old football team.
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