November 6, 2012

Election Day 2012: Beyond Walt Whitman



Election Day, November, 1884 
by Walt Whitman

If I should need to name, O Western World, your 
   powerfulest scene and show,
'Twould not be you, Niagara--nor you, ye limitless 
   prairies--nor your huge rifts of canyons, Colorado,
Nor you, Yosemite--nor Yellowstone, with all its 
   spasmic geyser-loops ascending to the skies, 
   appearing and disappearing,
Nor Oregon's white cones--nor Huron's belt of mighty 
   lakes--nor Mississippi's stream:
--This seething hemisphere's humanity, as now, 
   I'd name--the still small voice vibrating--America's 
   choosing day,
(The heart of it not in the chosen--the act itself the 
   main, the quadriennial choosing,)
The stretch of North and South arous'd--sea-board 
   and inland--Texas to Maine--the Prairie States--
   Vermont, Virginia, California,
The final ballot-shower from East to West--the 
   paradox and conflict,
The countless snow-flakes falling--(a swordless 
   conflict,
Yet more than all Rome's wars of old, or modern 
   Napoleon's:) the peaceful choice of all,
Or good or ill humanity--welcoming the darker 
   odds, the dross:
--Foams and ferments the wine? it serves to 
   purify--while the heart pants, life glows:
These stormy gusts and winds waft precious ships,
Swell'd Washington's, Jefferson's, Lincoln's sails.

Walt Whitman was passionate, fervent (note the Foams and ferments) and Election Day has always been Big News.
Things don't change and do change:  "The final ballot-shower from East to West" ok. But it's now become CNN's "final voting hour" with multiple millions of viewers tracking  results from East to West.

"The Heart of it not in the chosen---the act itself the main, the quadriennial choosing" is only partly true.

Today the stakes are planetary.  It's not just the touching idea of everyman, everywoman engaged in the quasi-reverent ceremony of The Vote, the Big Show and spectacle observed minute by minute by Americans and non-Americans alike.  
It's that we are witnessing two very diverse philosophies, and the potential outcomes.
I confess I used to be a bit more cynical about party differences, committed Democrat though I am, but there's something stark here.

Romney would bring a terrifyingly constricted world vision to the presidency, along with the corrupting influence of huge money: run the country like a business, look at me and try to do as I have done, live as I believe you should live (at least this week), look at my smooth, prosperous smile, trust me and don't worry that I don't know a damn thing about foreign policy.

It'll be a cliff-hanger, but Barack Obama will be our president for the next term.