Who?

I feel awkward talking about my intent to pursue a political career someday. It sounds childish to me; equivalent to wanting to be a famous dancer or movie star. Not that I think either are necessarily comparable in obligation, but they seem to share an arrogance. I cringe a little when I hear myself say it because I know subconsciously I'm thinking "who do you think you are?"

Thankfully, at the end of the day I don't need to think I'm good enough. I think for me its good enough to say at the day's end that I went at it with the best intentions. To that end, I read this quote the other day and it struck me fairly hard...

He was no saint. Win or lose, there would be no canonization of Thomas P. O'Neill Jr. In a lifetime in politics he'd gouged eyes, thrown elbows, bent the law and befriended rogues and thieves. He could be mean and small-minded. But at his core there lay a magnificence of spirit, deep compassion and a rock-hard set of beliefs. He had a sense of duty that he refused to abandon for those whom Heaven's grace forgot - and he would sooner die on the floor of the House, or watch his party be vanquished and dispersed, than desert them. "You know you're right?" Millie would ask him, as he adjusted his tie at the door in the morning. "Yes," he would say, and he knew it -knew it- knew it like he knew the streets of Cambridge, the liturgy of Sunday Mass or how to stack a conference committee. "then do your best," she would say, and off he would go.

- Tip O'Neill and the Democratic Century...

We've all read that quote or passage or something where a confluence of ideas we've had become clear, like the forged grains of our own constitution. For me, this passage might have summed up my political intentions and in those political intentions, a lifetime's worth of feelings, philosophies, and visions. We're never the product our grand ideals would call for us to be, but its good to know that great men before have achieved that greatness while falling short as well.

I don't need to make it a sap's story here, but I've been on the losing side of plenty of battles in my lifetime. Too poor, too ugly, too late, too unaware, or too bad - you sit there awake at night sometimes and wonder what you did to make something that shitty happen to you. I'm lucky enough to be able to bounce back, but I still burn up when I see it happen to someone else. That socially awkward kid who just wants someone to talk to them, or that poor son of a bitch who just can't seem to get some momentum going.

I didn't really get into politics until I was 17. Before that it was just my mother and my uncle reciting diametrically opposed platform planks while we went to get pizza, or for Christmas shopping. But politics to me is a cause you know before you understand it can be addressed in politics. So maybe I have my flawed days where I can be small-minded. God knows I can be vain and lazy. But for every moment I cringe at some social function when I tell people what I'd like to do, there are countless other times where I come around to find someone down and out, needing a job or struggling to get help moving out of their place and I remember that its a pretty shitty place out there sometimes. I can't say if I'll be a pol some day, and if I am what sort I'll be but I do know I've seen the face of Alzheimer's, and of single-motherhood and I know that I can at least do my best for those Heaven's grace forgot.

That justice is done, that mercy prevails. - Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill Jr.