11-26-2000

The envelope please: Awards for truly deserving in Election 2000

Now that this closest-in-history 2000 election has passed into the hands what seems like tens of thousands of trial lawyers and, maybe, the Electoral College, it is time to recognize the truly outstanding achievements of the political season with some richly deserved awards. Envelopes, please.

Patience of Job Award: To all the hardy souls who watched the primaries and party conventions, then endured thousands of renditions of the same two speeches, 30-second spots aimed squarely at third-grade dropouts, and moronic spin by hacks and crackpots, and still stayed up till the wee hours election night to witness real democracy in action.

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington Award: To supporters of Ralph Nader and other minor party candidates who cast honest, informed votes of personal conviction, contrary to the assertions of show business luminaries Joanne Woodward and Rob Reiner and Duluth DFL activists Gail Huntley and Sarah Lewerenz.

There's a Light on but Nobody's Home Award: Shared jointly by Texas Gov. George W. Bush for proclaiming that Social Security is not a federal program and The Fox-TV ingenue in Portland, Maine, oblivious to the reality that she was set up by a Democratic party topsider on Bush's 1976 drunk driving charge.

Horatio Alger Lifetime Achievement Award: To Vice President Al Gore for rising above a poverty-stricken boyhood plowing hillsides behind mules to inspire ``Love Story,'' discover Love Canal, develop the Strategic Oil Reserve and invent the Internet.

National Geographic Explorer Award: To first lady and senator-elect Hillary Rodham Clinton for requiring an exploratory committee to locate Elmira, Oswego and Binghamton, N.Y.

Rainbow Coalition Diversity Award: To Gov. Bush and the Republican National Committee for staging a convention in Philadelphia in which the only visible heterosexual white males were John McCain, Norman Schwartzkopf, Bush and Richard Cheney.

Gregor Mendel Award for Creative Genetics: To unsuccessful Minnesota Supreme Court challenger Greg Wersal for adopting as his middle name his wife's maiden name, thus appearing on the ballot as Greg Carlson Wersal.

Raise the Drawbridge Award: To St. Louis County Commissioner Peg Sweeney, for equating the trashing of a lawn sign with the brutal murders of three area young women.

I Am Tobacco Award: To Gore-Lieberman campaign operatives for their generous offer of packs of cigarettes to homeless Milwaukee vagrants for their votes.

Stepford Wives Zombie Award: To Cindy McCain, for maintaining that adoring, glazed look of approving amusement as hubby John proclaimed himself Luke Skywalker with his light saber of campaign finance reform for the 17,405th time.

Goddess of Justice Award: To News Tribune editorial page editor Pia Lopez for her evenhandedness in 13 nonjudicial endorsements, one of which was not echoed by the Duluth DFL and Central Labor Body.

Aristotle-Jean Claude Killy Slippery Slope Logic Award: Awarded jointly to Harry Welty for deducing that opponent State Sen. Doug Johnson is singlehandedly responsible for a generation of population loss on the Iron Range and to four prominent Duluth DFL feminists for proclaiming that abortion rights is the major issue in St. Louis County Commission races.  

And (fanfare please), the coveted Hannibal Lector Humanitarian Award: Shared jointly by Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority for ``push-poll'' telephone calls during the South Carolina and Michigan GOP primaries reminding us that John McCain is the Antichrist and by the NAACP for similar calls in October placing blame squarely on Gov. Bush for a brutal Ku Klux Klan lynching in Jasper, Texas.

Finally. The Tiny Tim ``God Bless You, One and All'' Award: To the fat-cat donors whose soft-money donations made possible TV ads that squeezed out those ads featuring the Menard's man and to all the candidates and campaign operatives who for a splendid season obscured talk show and public obsession over Linda Tripp, Monica, O.J., Jon-Benet and Lee Harvey Oswald.

Fischer is an emeritus professor of history at the University of Minnesota Duluth and a long-time commentator on the local, state and national political scene.

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