What divides us unites us

We’ve been winding our way to Florida over the past few days, braving torrential rains in Mississippi and Alabama and outrunning tornadoes all across the South. This isn’t the most direct route from Wisconsin, but I had but five states remaining on my bucket list – to visit all fifty states. By threading the line from south central Wisconsin, through Illinois, hugging the Missouri River from St. Louis to Memphis, we were able to knock off Mississippi and Alabama before entering the Florida Panhandle. That’s 47 down, three to go.

Along the way we stopped at state welcome centers along the interstate highways (and not even an interstate in Alabama). It seems that displaying the photo of the current governor is a mandatory piece of interior design in all of these places (and we were impressed with how nice each one was). It wasn’t our intention to do so, but after gazing at the photograph of each governor, Terry started asking the hospitable and knowledgeable staff behind the travel information desk in each of these centers whether the governor was Republican or Democrat.

Not one of them knew.

They all thought about it for a while. One thought out loud, “Democrat. No Republican. I’m not sure, but I’m pretty sure Republican. But I don’t know.”

There was one staffer who couldn’t come up with the party affiliation of the current governor but seemed to have committed to memory the entire life of Alabama Governor George Wallace.

Another responded, again after giving it some thought, “I don’t know. All I know is that he signs my paycheck.”

An interesting observation, I thought. Governors tend not to sign paychecks. State Auditors or Treasurers often find a way to affix their signatures in a facsimile form. Or maybe another financial officer with state authority does it. But governors don’t usually get that privilege of foisting their names upon state employees for reinforcement purposes.

It reminds me of those salespeople who deal in large appliances or vehicles. When totaling up the final sale and coming to the sales tax, they often say, “And, of course, we have to add this amount in for the governor.” It’s supposed to be a joke, I know, and I should probably lighten up. But having worked for a governor, I find it not only unfunny, but grossly inaccurate. Yet, I digress.

I suppose this experience (which we’ll continue on our trip back via another route) should lead me to conclude that there is a mass of truly uninformed voters in this country as the media pundits repeatedly suggest. When that conclusion is reached, regardless of the partisan nature of the speaker, the insult is always aimed at the opposing political party. Based on our very limited survey, these state travel center staff would probably fall somewhere among the great unwashed.

But I have to give it a second or third thought. Could it be that political parties and affiliations are just not important to people anymore? From my history reading, I believe I can say that party alliances have been very important over the past 240 years of this country. Federalists, Anti-Federalists, Whigs, Socialists, Democrat-Republicans, Libertarians, Democrat-Socialists, and the current nomenclature of Democrat and Republican have all figured prominently into voters’ decision making. “My dad always voted Republican so I vote straight Republican” (or vice versa) people used to say with some pride. When I heard that as a child, I would think, “Gee, what if one of those Republicans or Democrats isn’t qualified?” But we are all products of our upbringing. At some point, whether it’s politics or religious affiliation, some of us make a deliberate decision to part ways on occasion with the thinking of our parents. Still, in both of those categories in the history of this country, children have traditionally followed the paths set out for them by parents and grandparents and generations beyond.

That is, of course, until the recent past. I began straying from the family traditions years ago and questioned the need for political parties at all. As I saw thinking change so that people who once would have been called Democrats were now calling themselves Republicans, people who once affiliated with elephants were now displaying donkey bumper stickers, it all began to feel rather convoluted to me. The Progressive label moved from Republicans to Democrats without regard to its own birth and rationale. Then it seemed the definition changed. Some folks became so liberal that they came all the way around to being conservative because they could not tolerate the opinions of anyone who disagreed with them. Some conservatives have gone so far to the right that their intolerance is meeting up with the liberals on the way around the bend.

So I muse a bit over the very kind staff at state travel centers. They are there, after all, to help all of us find our way through and in their home states. They are probably instructed on how to avoid getting into a political fray with anyone who crosses their borders. Is knowing the governor’s political affiliation important?

Perhaps to those adherents to one line of thought or another, it is. But to increasing numbers of us, it doesn’t make a hill of beans worth of difference. I don’t want to be tied to one political party or another. There are good people all around and there are some real incorrigibles too.

Kudos to the travel center staff who don’t know their governor’s party affiliation. I find that rather refreshing even if uninformed.

 

 

“You shall not render an unjust judgment; you shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great: with justice you shall judge your neighbor.” – Leviticus 19:15

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