The President is on the Line

Notes of Concern…
…Jackson Blair



The President is on the Line

It is the Sunday before our special election in Massachusetts. You know, the one to fill “Ted Kennedy’s seat” in the United States Senate. And here all this time I thought it was simply the seat of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Normally, this election would be somewhat a non-event. Only those who always vote, along with immediate members of the families of both candidates, would bother to go to the polls. In this really Blue state, that means whichever person had the nomination of the Democratic Party would be the winner.

A couple of local papers would run stories on the results, but only for one day. And life would move on.

Not this year!

Massachusetts residents were inundated with calls from their close friends who are United States Senators, daughters of candidates, interested movie stars, worried celebrities of various ilks, political parties registered in other states…the list is unending.

I received a call the other day, purportedly from my United States Senator, John Kerry. I say “purportedly” because he did all the talking, I did all the listening, and I had no way to check the veracity of the call. I didn’t hang up on him until about the fourth sentence. I was holding out hope he might actually pick up and speak with me.

That said, he is a United States Senator from my state and has every right to communicate with me on issues of concern to him and those he think should be of concern to me.

But what of the calls from the Georgia State Democratic committee offices? In the news I found this:

“In an email Saturday, the state Democratic Party (of Georgia) urged its supporters to participate in a phone bank for Martha Coakley.”

Frankly, I am going to assume this means that other party headquarters in other states, both Republican and Democrat, are probably offering up their Watts lines and other communications devices so they can share with us their very real concern that we might actually not know we are doing.

There is a nice ring to the idea of Georgians helping me pick a Massachusetts Senator because, after all, they gave us Lester Maddox and James Earl Carter. Both those guys acted a lot like they shared our Massachusetts values.

As I am writing today I received a call from a delightful young woman. The voice was pleasant and the talk deferential (how did she know my age?). I would have loved to have engaged her in conversation but, alas, the talk was one sided. The call was made by one of Senator Scott Brown’s daughters. But she really didn’t want to talk with me; she wanted to talk at me. I didn’t hang up on her until she got to about sentence ten. I am a sucker for female voices.

Sadly, I was not one of the people who got a telephone call from a man who should be way too busy to call, the President of the United States. Fortunately for the republic, he only had to tape his message once and could spend his time more profitably on the business of saving the country and providing guidance to the world.

I am told the President’s message hails Coakley as a champion for the people “who has taken on Wall Street, insurance companies and big polluters.”

Whoa, I didn’t know the Attorney General of Massachusetts could go after those rogues on Wall Street, in the State of New York, but now that I do I can only admire the breadth and depth of her reach. I guess all the crime in our Commonwealth was wrapped up early and she was able to help out old Andrew Cuomo down there in that state that is wrapped around the Big Apple. It is so nice to help out and be needed. I thought she would be hard at work trying to find Whitey Bulger.

I am glad I didn’t get the President’s call because I am a stickler for proper behavior and I would not have been able to hang up the phone on him. Heck, I would probably have been holding the phone with one hand and putting the other over my heart. And when I learned it was taped I could have also hummed a few bars of Hail to the Chief. That is a really catchy tune.

As my Sunday progressed my old pal, Pat Boone called. Pat Boone! They must have had to dig really deep down into that pot of Hollywood stars of the past to get to Pat Boone.

Of course, Frank Sinatra and Marlon Brando aren’t available any more. And not one of the Li’l Rascals could be found for this assignment.

The mistake they made was using Pat for a telephone call. Pat has always looked 30 years of age so he should be saved for television ads and photo ops. Well, there is the matter of those white bucks.
I hung up right after Pat introduced himself because I was afraid it might really be him and what in the world would I have to say about Beach Blanket Bingo and the string of B movie hits he enjoyed when flared pants were all the rage? Well, if Debbie was there I could have launched into a few verses of You Light Up My Life. Fathers always appreciate it when people think well of their daughters.

I share this all in the spirit of good fun. That said, there is part of me that is insulted. I don’t like the “talking heads” on the televised news telling me what I just heard. But they do it all the time.

Now I am asked to pick between the Attorney General of my state and a State Senator as to which I might want to represent my views in Washington, DC for the next six year

And President Obama, Brown’s daughter, John Kerry, Pat Boone and countless others want to tell me how to do it.

Right!

I am hanging up now.