Political stripes in the poolroom

I thought it was just a poolroom conversation, devoid, as most of them are on league nights, of anything substantial enough to outlive the moment.

COLUMN GOSIER E-mail: Click here Archive

By ELIJAH GOSIER

© St. Petersburg Times, published December 5, 2000

I thought it was just a poolroom conversation, devoid, as most of them are on league nights, of anything substantial enough to outlive the moment.

"I think what is fair is to get the best possible count of all the votes cast," I contributed in response to a question.

That was all I had to say, and in spite of all the verbiage that says otherwise, I figured that was all there was that could be said intelligently about the state of the presidential election to that point.

My friend and teammate of several years didn't think so.

By the time he caught another breath, I had heard that Gore was a sore loser, a liar, a supporter of murder by way of late-term abortions and that he should concede. Usually a good listener, I can follow other people's arguments even when they take routes that lead somewhere other than a logical conclusion, but I turn back when they disconnect themselves from the starting point.

So as he harangued about baby killing, I pondered another question: What does any of this have to do with a fair presidential election, which I thought had been the focus of the conversation?

That led me to wonder what if it were the other way around. If Gore had been declared the winner and Bush were challenging the count, would I be so magnanimous in my declaration of what's fair, or would I lambaste Bush for being a sore loser and a recovering boozer if he challenged the vote count?

As with most hypotheticals, the answer to this one was unclear. One thing, however, was clear: I sure hoped Gore would prevail, in the real challenge and in the hypothetical one.

Like 90 percent of black voters across the nation and 93 percent in Florida, I cringe at the thought of a Bush presidency. I supported Gore not because I am convinced that he will do great things for America, but because I fear that Bush will do great harm.

Beyond all the character attacks and the baby-killing charges, I think my pool-playing friend had the same feeling about his support for Bush. He had no illusions about Bush's date with destiny. Two or three paragraphs in the history books -- and most of that about the historymaking election -- should pretty much cover his presidency. But Al Gore scared him.

Apparently there was more to this election than chad, light conversation and a few hundred votes, just as there was more to the O.J. Simpson murder trial than bad cops, good lawyers and a jury that became defendants.

This election is about the presidency about as much as O.J. was about the verdict. Both turned out to be about a division in this country that makes it hard for people of different ethnicities -- the core around which this nation of immigrants and transplants is built -- to see anything eye to eye.

Both were about fear.

"We are at the end of the second Reconstruction," said the Rev. M. Mason Walker, alluding to the post-Civil War era when fear of newly freed blacks acquiring economic and political influence prompted a white backlash that included disenfranchisement.

"It is no longer popular for blacks or whites to advocate for blacks," said Walker, an influential St. Petersburg resident who now is the pastor of a church in Tampa. "Liberal' is now synonymous with "n--- lover."'

As in the era of the first Reconstruction, blacks fear going backward. Then, it would have meant a return to enslavement; now it would be in the direction of Jim Crow, or apartheid, as Walker puts it.

That fear sent 360,000 more black Florida voters to the polls this election than in 1996, accounting for 29 percent of Gore's total in the state, turning a would-be Bush landslide into a coin toss election.

Many whites, as in the first Reconstruction, fear moving forward, where their control will be diluted and their new, more accommodating country will have a less familiar, less homey feel to it.

So why has the division come to a head at this juncture?

Probably because the battlefront has never been so clearly drawn, with two men, each a prototype -- if not a stereotype -- of the faction he represents, facing off in a battle so evenly matched that a handful of people hold the power to send the country down drastically different paths.

Gore embodies the standard of what is left of liberalism: weak knees and soft edges, too concerned about alienating other white people rather than forcefully acting on behalf of black. On the playground, you would look among the girls before choosing him for your team.

Bush, his counterpart, unconcerned about alienating black folks, as evidenced by his noncommittal attitude toward hate crime legislation after racists dragged a black man to death in his state, can afford a more macho, forceful front. His one-of-the-boys, one-of-you facade plays well to his target audience. On the playground, he would be one of the first players you'd choose, until you found out he bats cross-handed and has never played before.

"He brings such an insensitivity to the office of president," Walker said of Bush. "The thing that's paramount in my mind -- and I hear it from so many people -- is the possibility of George Bush appointing as many as three or four people to the Supreme Court. I wish the current bench long lives," he added, laughing, but not joking.

Contrary to the offerings of Letterman and Leno and a thousand other would-be humorists, there really isn't much to joke about with this election. And not much you can safely talk about.

Even with a pool league teammate.

Especially with a pool league teammate.

© St. Petersburg Times. All rights reserved.