Local Politics is all Good.

I don't yet know the results of the state and national races, but tonight in my hometown, it was a win, not only for my candidate, but also for what is all good about politics, and that is local. Tonight we had a victory party, but the party is always the same, win or lose. The venue never varies, the Solomon Welles House on the Wethersfield Cove for us, (the American Legion Hall on Main Street for them.) The entree is always cold cardboard pizza with an Italian cookie tray for dessert. The choice of cocktails is Bud or Bud Lite, White or Red, Coke or Sprite. The candidates can vary, but never the crowd. We are lawyers, (rarely doctors,) teachers, (rarely librarians,) sheriffs, realtors, accountants, octogenarians, high school kids, babies, young marrieds, (rarely singles,) state workers, (rarely municipal,) retirees, and those of us for whom tomorrow is another day of work. Some of us are well-educated, well-housed, and prosperous; others' income is fixed and living space tight. We don't always agree on (and therefore rarely discuss) the issues. But on election night, we are all together, and we all know the drill. The newsprint is spread out on the wall. The district captains stream in with their results. The party chairwoman reads the totals for each candidate. The votes are recorded with the same markers, always red for the Republicans, blue for the Dems, and green for everyone else. We know the results before the tally is official. We hug and kiss people whom we haven't seen since the last election, but whom we cherish on this night every year. Then we go home to our TVs to see what happened in the rest of the country, forgetting that those results are just the tally of all the other towns like ours. And those Senators, Representatives, and Governors were all elected because people like us registered voters, put signs on our lawns, walked with candidates, and called our neighbors on Election Day. So tonight we party, and it is all good, and, Tip was right, all politics is local, and that is all good too.