Politics

What I Never Learned at Mommy and Me

Kathy StevensonLeave a comment

(Originally published in Newsweek as a “My Turn” essay on 3/1/04).  A bit of associated trivia: Donald Trump was on the cover.)

My son sits tensely on the couch watching the nightly television news while the newscaster speaks words that no seventeen year-old child should hear. Because of heightened security concerns the terrorism alert has been raised to orange level… Another suicide bombing has been reported in Iraq. There are an as yet unknown number of civilian casualties… Next up, a special report on whether hazmat suits really protect against anthrax…

Add to that the scrolled messages rolling out beneath the news anchor. More doom and gloom – predictions of a recession, a canceled flight from London, street violence in Haiti, continued nuclear potential in North Korea.

I sit and watch the news with him. At seventeen, he needs to know what is going on in the world, but the continual litany of sorrow and fear that is somehow now part of the very fabric of our daily lives is almost too much to bear. I wish for a moment that I could just flip off the television like I would when he was a little guy, and say, “Hey, let’s go to the park!”

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Are You Prepared for a Credit Crisis?

Kathy StevensonLeave a comment

(Originally published in Main Line Life on 10/16/08.)

As I was flipping through the morning talk shows trying to find some good news about anything, I discovered the reason our country is facing a financial credit crisis. I will take no credit for this (no pun intended) discovery. It is so obvious that even Barney Frank might be able to understand it.

It happened right after our president gave his now daily morning update that doesn’t make anyone feel better. When he speaks I want to stick pins in myself to make sure I’m not really dead and listening to this from another dimension of the time/space continuum.

The whole morning had been spent with talking heads and politicians blaming one another for the mess we are in. Doom and gloom of the worst sort. And then the commercial comes on. “Do you have bad credit? We guarantee you a car loan even if you can’t get credit anywhere else! Even if you are considered a bad risk! Come on down!” And then, “Need a mortgage and can’t get one? We don’t turn anyone down, even if you have bad credit!”
Isn’t there some kind of disconnect there? Let’s see – as consumers we are being told we helped cause the crisis because we are buying stuff we can’t afford on credit, yet even at this worst time, credit is being advertised on television to people who shouldn’t qualify.

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Why I Should be President

Kathy StevensonLeave a comment

(Originally published in Main Line Life 4/30/08)

This may come as a shock to my close friends and family, but it turns out that I am ideally suited to run for President. Since I am a very modest and unassuming person, it took me a while to figure this out. But if it’s not too late, I’d like to throw my hat in the ring.

For one thing, I come from very humble beginnings. One of the most oft-told stories in my family is the tale of how, when I was about ten years old, I made my own Monopoly game. There are few things sadder in this great country of ours than a family that can’t even afford to buy a Monopoly game. But did I give up in the face of this adversity? I think not. Instead I quietly went about the neighborhood asking neighbors for discarded cardboard and paper and made my own game, complete with a board, money, and community chest and chance cards.

As luck would have it I was the first person in either my mother’s or father’s family to graduate from college (a bonus if you are running for President.) As the oldest of seven I often displayed ambition beyond my years – mainly because I couldn’t wait to get out of our overcrowded house. Note to campaign staff: my first political ad should show me being dropped off at the University of Colorado with a tiny suitcase and a paper bag – all my belongings in the world – as my dad lurched to a halt in front of my dorm in his sputtering Plymouth, let me out and then floored it. Contrast this with today’s pampered college freshman. Continue reading →

Politics Makes for Strange Neighbors and Bedfellows

Kathy StevensonLeave a comment

(Originally Published in Main Line Life on 10/30/08. Note how many observations still apply today!)
There is a part of me – the journalist part of me – that wishes this political campaign could go on forever. Oh, that’s right, it has.

It’s just that this particular campaign has offered so much in the way of electrifying drama, earnest pathos, wily back-stabbing, tactless remarks, disreputable behavior (remember John Edwards?), and astonishing surprises (remember, also that not-so-long-ago Friday morning when Sarah Palin was introduced to us and we all said Sarah who?) As they say in the writing biz – you can’t make this stuff up.

Nowhere is this Sturm and Drang more obvious than on a family and neighborhood level. It’s one thing to yell at the Fox News team on your own television, but at some point you’ve got to say hello to your neighbor, sit down to Thanksgiving dinner with your parents, and presumably occupy the same bedroom as your spouse. It was a long-ago essayist (we’d call him a pundit now) named Charles Dudley Warner, a contemporary of Mark Twain’s, who noted, “Politics makes strange bedfellows.” None stranger perhaps than spouses who are divided in their political affiliations.

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