Politics Takes A Holiday

The Bernie Sanders campaign is laying off hundreds of staff members, indicating either he is planning to throw in the towel after California, or that he won’t be placing people currently on his staff in local political organizations for the fall campaign. Maybe both.

The presidential nominating party may not be over, but most of the guests have left and the hosts have begun cleaning up the mess, getting ready for a return to normalcy, which in Iowa means organizing for the June 7 primary elections where there are contested races, and the fall campaign beginning after the Labor Day weekend.

Political campaigns will work through the summer, and there is a filing period in August, but each year, regular people engage in the election cycle later and closer to the election. For folks like me, politics takes a holiday after the primary elections until the fall campaign. We have lives to live.

I’ve written about the county supervisors race which has been reduced to a series of special interest forums in Iowa City and Coralville, along with fund raisers and whatever else each campaign sees fit to do.

I missed the first forum last night. Bottom line was I couldn’t afford the $5 in gasoline and an hour of driving on a work night. Stephen Gruber-Miller covered the forum for the Iowa City Press Citizen and here’s a link to his article. They say people in the county seat can access video of the event on their local cable television channel, but the service does not include Big Grove Township.

My trouble with picking three candidates for supervisor is besides the incumbents, I don’t share a view of the county with any of them. My relationship with the county seat is tenuous at best, although I likely benefit from the economic engine that is the University of Iowa. I’ll pick one of the two business people for my third vote and see what decision the urban centers make for me. No need to decide until late in the race, early June most likely.

The other primary election that matters is for U.S. Senate and I support State Senator Rob Hogg over three other candidates.

Politicization of our lives has become a detriment to living, so the compulsion I felt toward campaigns during the George W. Bush years is in remission. I work on issues, but like with the climate crisis, they represent human values and shame on those who politicize them or frame them in the false paradigm that is conservative vs. progressive. People like billionaire Tom Steyer is who I have in mind, but it applies equally to all of the billionaire class members.

My summer will be eking out a living on the margins of society, hopefully making enough money to live on, reducing debt, and finding joy in simple pleasures. We don’t need politics for that.