Positive Politics

I have a big fat stupid girl-crush on Elizabeth Warren. I liked her even before she fired her opening salvo (now famous on YouTube) in the race for US Senator from Massachusetts about how we’re all in this together and no one has success in a vacuum etc. Every time I start to get all squooshy about my love for her I try to remind myself that eventually we find out all politicians are sleazy or disingenuous. Still, I just can’t shake my wide-eyed admiration for her.

See, I agree with her on most things. Not all, but most.

The zeitgeist says that I now ought to loathe her opponent Scott Brown. I should rejoice when Rachel Maddow riffs on “What’s wrong with Scott Brown?”I should scour the internet for reasons to hate him. I should enjoy the one last sphere of life in which it is acceptable to rabidly detest someone.

But I don’t detest Scott Brown. I just disagree with him on many of his votes and positions. Not all, but many.

Somehow it feels not OK to say that someone I plan to vote “against”, so to speak, is likely a perfectly nice human being with good intentions. Giving a political opponent the benefit of the doubt is a capital sin these days.

I wonder if that’s why Obama was such a sensation: for a while people could just be “for” someone, without having to be against someone else (not that Sarah Palin didn’t give us plenty to be against in the opposing ticket – I am no longer inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt).

It feels good to be excited about a candidate. It feels good to not harbor nastiness in my own heart. Against all odds I’m trying to maintain my positive politics.