Breakfast of Champions
By CHARLES BAXTER
New York Times
Minneapolis
THE Senate has been seated, and we have a new senator, Amy Klobuchar. But we’re still talking about the aftermath of the midterm elections.
Two friends from high school, guys I’ve known for 40 years, and I are at breakfast at a greasy spoon on Lyndale Avenue, watching the Minneapolis traffic. I ask for their analysis. My friend the estate planner speaks up first.
“I have it all figured out. Bill Clinton defeated Karl Rove,” he says. “The centrist Democrats, Bill Clinton types, beat out the Karl Rove types, the base voters. The base strategy isn’t going to work for a while. If it had worked, Mark Kennedy would have won the race for the Senate, and we’d have a scowling movement-conservative accountant as Minnesota’s senator. Instead, we have a brainy upbeat soccer-mom progressive. She won in a landslide. She was the antidote to despair. That’s what’s important.”
My other friend looks up from cutting his waffle and joins in. “Bill O’Reilly said national voter turnout would be low. He said that the election was a matter of life and death but that everyone — or ‘the folks,’ as he calls them — would be watching ‘Dancing with the Stars.’ ” He chews thoughtfully. “That’s pretty cynical of him. Who are these ‘folks’ he’s always talking about? Anyway, he was wrong. There was a huge turnout in Minnesota.”
“George Bush hit the trifecta,” I say. “Iraq, corruption and incompetence.” I dig into my huevos. “Failure follows failure. The Republic Party will take years to recover from this. Al Franken thinks George Bush won’t even be invited to the 2008 convention. It doesn’t matter. No one has anything new to say about the current administration. It’s all been said.”
(The rest is here.)
New York Times
Minneapolis
THE Senate has been seated, and we have a new senator, Amy Klobuchar. But we’re still talking about the aftermath of the midterm elections.
Two friends from high school, guys I’ve known for 40 years, and I are at breakfast at a greasy spoon on Lyndale Avenue, watching the Minneapolis traffic. I ask for their analysis. My friend the estate planner speaks up first.
“I have it all figured out. Bill Clinton defeated Karl Rove,” he says. “The centrist Democrats, Bill Clinton types, beat out the Karl Rove types, the base voters. The base strategy isn’t going to work for a while. If it had worked, Mark Kennedy would have won the race for the Senate, and we’d have a scowling movement-conservative accountant as Minnesota’s senator. Instead, we have a brainy upbeat soccer-mom progressive. She won in a landslide. She was the antidote to despair. That’s what’s important.”
My other friend looks up from cutting his waffle and joins in. “Bill O’Reilly said national voter turnout would be low. He said that the election was a matter of life and death but that everyone — or ‘the folks,’ as he calls them — would be watching ‘Dancing with the Stars.’ ” He chews thoughtfully. “That’s pretty cynical of him. Who are these ‘folks’ he’s always talking about? Anyway, he was wrong. There was a huge turnout in Minnesota.”
“George Bush hit the trifecta,” I say. “Iraq, corruption and incompetence.” I dig into my huevos. “Failure follows failure. The Republic Party will take years to recover from this. Al Franken thinks George Bush won’t even be invited to the 2008 convention. It doesn’t matter. No one has anything new to say about the current administration. It’s all been said.”
(The rest is here.)
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