A Red and Blue Holiday

Happy Winter Break, Big Red!

’Tis the season — to be jolly, yes, but also to run for president.

(How’s that for a curveball?)

You see, Dear Reader, while most of America gets settled in around an open fire these next few weeks, chestnuts a-roastin’, Rudy, Hillary, Barack and Co. will instead be busy pursuing that grand quadrennial tradition of trying to push each other on that fire as both the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primaries fast approach.

But wait! What’s that you say? You, too, think you have what it takes to lead this nation?

Then keep reading.

There is, after all, so much to do in so little time.

First things first: you need to pick a party. How do you do that? Make a list of every issue that matters to you, everything that you feel is important. Then, determine where you stand on those issues — do you tend to trust or distrust government? Would you describe welfare as a handout or a hand up? Is it more important that we lower taxes or balance the budget? Should we hang around Iraq for a while or get out ASAP? Is there such a thing as the “war on terror,” and, if so, are we using the right strategies to fight it?

Et cetera, et cetera.

Or you can just skip all that.

Like red? You’re a Republican! Like blue? You’re a Democrat!

Congratulations! Welcome to your new party!

(Exclamation points are so underrated!)

Now.

Moving on: you need money. Like, lots of it.

Finally, you know those questions I said you could skip? That doesn’t mean they’re not important. They are.

Here’s the thing: they’re important, but — you want to win, right? — it’s not your job to answer them. At least, it’s not your job to answer them yourself; that’s where the preferred color once again comes into play.

Why? Because before you can run for president, your party has to nominate you.

Of course, to make their nominations, both parties turn to their members, who — in some way or another — tell the people at the top who they want to see reppin’ them on the ballot come Election Day. This is a process usually carried out by means of what is known as a primary election.

And just who do you think turns out to vote in such an election? Yep — the reddest of the red and the bluest of the blue.

It is therefore your job, my prospective candidate, to let these people answer all the important questions for you — no matter what you’re running for.

Fate, needless to say, has not been kind to those who have done otherwise.

Take Joe.

Joe was a Democratic senator from a state where independents outnumbered both Republicans and Democrats.

One day, Joe decided — as politicians are wont to do — that he wanted to run for reelection.

This seemed, at first, a piece of cake, both to Joe and everyone else.

Joe was a proud Democrat, and a prominent one at that — he had even run under his party’s ticket for vice president just a few years prior.

More than that, however, Joe was, simply put, a statesman; he respected his colleagues on both sides of the aisle and made sure they knew it.

Joe made his state — and the independent thinkers he represented — proud.

But, alas, not everyone liked Joe.

Joe, like many in his party, had supported the war in Iraq when it first began; unlike many in his party, he still supported it when he made the decision to run for reelection.

Thence the reason why more than a few voters — particularly the more liberal members of his own party — were not exactly crazy about the idea of keeping Joe around for another six years.

Still, a majority of voters in his state were looking forward to sending Joe back to Capitol Hill, and he was sure that this would be enough to give him another notch in his victory belt.

To make a long (and oft-cited) story short, it was — but not without a particularly big bump along the way.

Before adding that notch, Joe lost the primary election and got the boot from the Democratic Party. He sits in Washington today only because he was established enough to mount an independent bid and win in his own right.

Many people, including yours truly, have told the story of the man otherwise known as Senator Joseph Lieberman since it first unfolded to decry the increasingly rigid, increasingly ideological nature of our political parties. I have told it today for a different reason.

Not everyone can do what Joe did.

For most politicians, losing the primary means losing the election; winning the primary, then, means everything, and the majority of those same politicians are thus willing to do anything to get there — including, yes, letting the most extreme members of their party write their platforms for them.

This may help them win — but it ultimately ensures, on a deeper level, that both we the people and they the candidates lose.

Just something to think about on primary day.

Mark Coombs is a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences. He can be contacted at mcoombs@cornellsun.edu [1]. If You Can Keep It appears alternate Wednesdays.