Political Correctness 

By TAD BARTIMUS

It's the first party of the season, and we're dressed in our best bib and tucker, politely inquiring about each other's health. Then we move on to the weather -- "Oh my, isn't it cold?!" -- and compare holiday plans. We smile. We are friendly. But we are not ourselves.

Inwardly, we're a frustrated Democrat and an irate Republican poking index fingers into each other's chests and speaking our minds. Outwardly, we know we must remain cordial and calm. Once spoken, words can't be taken back, so we dance a mental minuet, careful not to step on each other's toes.

It isn't just the presidency that's at stake this holiday season. Office relationships, longtime friendships and even marriages also are being tested by the prolonged wrangling over whether George W. Bush or Al Gore becomes the next president of the United States.
Take my friend and me. We are strong-willed, highly opinionated political opposites. We know we canceled out each other's vote on Nov. 7. We know we've become increasingly polarized as the ballot count drags on. Intuitively, we're more formal and distant, more considerate of one another's feelings, because neither of us wants to let the genie out of the bottle. One wisecrack, one snide remark would be like throwing gasoline on a fire. We don't spam each other with political e-mails, tell derogatory jokes about the other's candidate or air our growing disgust with the opposing camp's legal maneuvering. We talk about everything but the topic of the day. 

This is a far cry from our pre-Nov. 7 behavior, when good-natured needling, bad jokes and partisan bravado prevailed. Back then, it was innocent fun to argue.
Florida changed all that.

With an electorate unnerved by prolonged indecision, each day that drags on without a clear winner lends more heft to the outcome. Keeping vigil, we're all agitated drivers with one foot on the brake and the other on the gas; do we floor it or park? Is our guy in or out? 
My friend and I know without saying so that this election has turned mud ugly. Gore and Bush clearly despise each other. Their surrogates are going for the jugular ("my ex-secretary of state can beat up your ex-secretary of state"). The rest of us wonder if Shakespeare wasn't right after all: "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers."
And so anybody with an opinion - and polls tell us that's nearly all of us now -- must navigate a minefield of relationships with people about whom we care but with whom we disagree.

The etiquette police once decreed that ladies and gentlemen should never talk about sex, religion or politics in polite company. The 1960s swept such archaic social rules out the door, along with smoking in public and wearing white shoes after Labor Day. Subsequent generations have let it all hang out.

Now many of us are tucking it back in. Just because our most prominent public figures are making fools of themselves over chads and dimples doesn't mean John and Jane Q. Citizen have to follow them down the toad hole. 

I don't want my Christmas party to become an Inquisition. I don't want my guests hurling insults at each other's parentage. Most of all, I don't want to lose my temper and, therefore, my friend. Perhaps even a dozen friends.
I fervently hope that when this messy test of democracy is over, it will turn out to be good for a country overburdened with cynicism and apathy about its own political system. Perhaps we'll be more tolerant of each other. Let's hope the new president will reach out to the best and brightest of his opponents, thus becoming a true leader instead of a craven partisan. We voters deserve good winners as well as good losers. 

My friend and I have learned the hard way that, even if our votes cancel each other out, they still matter. So does our friendship. May the best man - or at least the second-best - win. Peace.

© 2000 The Women Syndicate

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