INTO THE GREEN FIELDS: PART TWO

There had been several incidents over the past decade that has caused me to doubt the political system that is currently in place. The illusion that I had of the two-party system began to crack open in the fall of 2000 where polls began to show a very tightening race between Vice President Al Gore and Texas Governor George Bush. Hours before the election, NBC Correspondent Tim Russert claimed that the election was going down to “Florida, Florida, Florida!”
Tim Russert’s prediction would live in infamy. Based on exit polling, the networks called Florida early in the night for Gore but something was happening in Florida that the networks had overlooked. First, the Florida panhandle was in a different time zone and votes were still coming into the state’s tally. Secondly, the networks discovered that the exist polling that had been done was not matching the actual results coming out of Florida. Clearly the race was to close to call as the embarrassed Networks recanted the call for Florida and placed it back in the “to close to call” category. The situation only got worst from there, the networks, late in the night, gave Florida to Bush and then again had to recant leaving the election unresolved the morning after.
270 is the number that the electoral college mandates that an candidate must obtain to win the Presidential Election. Al Gore had 255 votes compared to George Bush’s 246 votes with Oregon and New Mexico still too close to call. So it came down to whoever won the state of Florida would win the presidency. A legal battle for Florida’s 25 electoral votes began hours after the election as both sides fought to claim the Florida crown. The back and forth squabbling made “hanging chads” and “dimpled chads” a political sex joke and Florida’s Secretary of State Katharine Harris became a political 2000 election icon. Ultimately it was the United States Supreme Court that stepped in that halted the several recounts in Florida in a controversial 5-4 decision that gave Governor Bush the presidency.
Even as Governor Bush claimed the presidency, a clear rift had form in my mind of the United States political system. The state of Florida had given their crown to Bush but something else bothered me greatly, for Al Gore had received 543,895 more votes nationwide; he had clearly taken the popular vote count. The electoral college had floundered and true democracy was not represented in the 2000 Presidential Election.
In 2002 I began volunteering, through the Victory Fund, for the campaign of Rod Blagojevich. I would set in a room making phone calls on behave of Rod, letting the citizens of Illinois know how he would fight for the working class, he would end corruption that had plagued the governor’s seat in recent years, and he would bring about economical change to the state. Rod was the guy to get these things accomplished! I would attend political events sporadically through the fall in support of Rod, who was the candidate that I believed in. Rod Blagojevich became the first Democrat to be elected to the governor’s seat in Illinois since 1972. His victory was filled with promise for the State of Illinois.
Illusions can really cast their shadows… On December 9th, 2008 after winning two terms as governor, Rod Blagojevich was arrested on federal corruption charges which included conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and the solicitation of bribery. He is accused of trying to sell the senate seat that was once held by President Obama to the highest bidder in what is called “pay to play” politics. Blagojevich was soon impeached and removed from office by the Illinois legislature and barred from ever running for political office in the state of Illinois again.
As well in 20002, I co-founded a College Democrats group at my community college and hosted a “Get to Know the Candidates” with the College Republican group that was on campus. That was the day that I met Sam Cahnman, a guest speaker who was running for the Sangamon County Board. We discussed his campaign and he invited me to join him as his volunteer coordinator. A few weeks into this position and just a couple of days before election day I was working in Sam’s law office going through a list of telephone numbers that needed to be called. My ink pin stopped working and I searched the top of his desk to find another one unsuccessfully. I then opened his left hand drawer to find elicit porn magazines piled on top of each other in his desk. I don’t know why this stunned me so much but I had a feeling that Mr. Cahnman was wearing a mask, pretending to be something that he wasn’t. I left and went home that night and I didn’t go back to his office even after several phone calls by him were left unanswered. He was the only Democrat to win a seat on the Sangamon County Board that year, which he won, a victory made by just one vote.
The day after his election victory, Sam Cahnman faced allegations of sexual misconduct. He allegedly had a romantic encounter with an inmate at the Sangamon County Jailhouse. According the Springfield State Register, the inmate had been arrested after police had found a methamphetamine lab in her home. I was unaware that earlier in the year, Cahnman was restricted by the Illinois Department of Corrections after a staff member accused Cahnman of “touching, hugging, and kissing a woman inmate.” I believe the restriction was lifted after a few months. However, in August of 2009, Sam Cahnman was arrested for allegedly soliciting a sexual act from two undercover female police officers outside a local Springfield bar.
In 2004, John Kerry chose John Edwards to be his running mate to fight the Goliath Republican propaganda of George Bush and Dick Cheney. Sept. 11th had changed the dynamics of the entire world. We were engaged in what was in my view, as a very unjust war in Iraq and our troops in the war in Afghanistan were beginning to be overlooked and forgotten. Political propaganda began flying around on the reasons why the war in Iraq was necessary but I didn’t, I wouldn’t buy into it. I had supported John Edwards during the Primaries but not with the passion that I had during the 2002 elections. I was excited that Kerry chose him to be his running mate and I felt that Edwards had the charisma, the passion, and the ability to bring about change in Washington. However, when election night approached and I found myself being very disengaged in the whole political process. I don’t quite remember but I believe I didn’t even vote in the election.
In the next few years I would feel very disenchanted by our political system. I really didn’t want anything more to do with the political arena and that’s saying a lot since politics has been such a huge part of my life. I’m a self professed news junkie and every since I was that child sitting in front of the television set watching the speeches of Michael Dukakis, I have dwelled in that political world. Election Day was always an exciting time for me and at some point through all of these incidents that involved the Electoral College, Governor Blagojevich, Sam Cahnman and even to the extent of John Edwards I was no longer able to connect with it. Looking back into my twenties and realizing how much a turbulent decade this time period was for me , I realized that without political hope , I was becoming more lost in my own life. I didn’t know what I wanted to do with myself anymore. College became a side chore that acted more like a thorn in my side rather a place to promote my education and my future. I no longer cared about college, I no longer cared about the political system and I was intent on just dwelling day to day without any direction. I felt that no matter what I did, it would not make a difference in the long run. I had put my faith in so many political individuals that had all eventually let me down.
It wasn’t until 2008 that my political ideology began to change and I realized that I had continued to support a political party that was corrupted with the lack of true democracy. I also began to realized that I couldn’t depend on other people to protect my rights, my beliefs, and the issues that I value if I wasn’t going to stand up and fight for them myself. These were all becoming such personal issues, and clearly the path that I had been following for so long was broken. This realization would lead to the decision to leave behind the two-party system. This is when I decided to leave the Democratic Party in search for something else… something more.