On monday or tuesday I gave out. As I contemplated putting up another hundred lawnsigns I ran across one that had been taken down. I stopped by the house to retreive it and the apologetic husband said his wife was bothered when someone drove past it and looked funny at her. I was very gracious. I understand. As I got the rebar post that held it up and he found the sign in the house I gathered up the signs and thought about the several no’s I got on Arlington Ave that morning….
I told myself I was on Lemon drop hill the notorious spot where the route back from the start of Grandma’s marathon gets steep and for years was the point at which many a runner realized finishing was going to be tough. Or as I told my letter carrier yesterday when he asked me how the campaign is going. I felt like Sisyphus. “Its hard to see around the rock” he said fully demonstrating his familiarity with my metaphor.
I have three weeks to go on a five year mission to remove Pete Stauber from doing any more damage to democracy in the US. If he wins by 500 votes I’ll be tempted to hate myself. If he wins by 500 votes and is the one vote that gives Donald Trump more python-like power to subvert the founding fathers…….I’ll be really tempted to hate myself.
I think 500 UMD students (enough votes to make up that difference) could be persuaded not to vote for Stauber if I simply passed out the editorial from the DNT door to door at the dorms. I printed out a 1000 of them that are sitting on my office floor. I quit passing out my own stuff after one day in which my tepid message discouraged me from continuing. As the column I wrote in this week’s Readers says I’ve been surrounded by books. History beckons just as the apocalypse beckons Earth with a Republican victory.
The chances of my being the sole link to a sane Earth are in fact minimal but when I came to Duluth one local independent candidate who was elected to the Minnesota State Senate was all it took to decide whether that body would be Republican or Democrat. Dick Palmer signed on with the Republicans. He only lasted one term until the Democrats got their revenge. He never tired of repeating his story in his version of Lincolndemocrat.com an advertiser called the Duluth Budgeteer.
Its Saturday. I’ve put off writing a Reader column all week but I’ve not once missed my daily hours of French. I also have books to read. If my three week pause gives the U.S. a Republican Congress so-be-it. I will have two years to say “I told you so.” When (not if) I do know its mostly directed at me for pooping out. My column will return to the mistake it would be to entrust a smiling weasel back into the hen coop. It will salve my conscience. Like Dick Palmer I’ll have another 20 or 30 years to tell the tale.
