Sunday, October 31, 2004

Defining Democracy

With the election only 48 hours away, my nerves are shot. But trying to stay calm, I hope that we've learned something important in this divisive journey to Tuesday.

From Todd Purdum in the The Year of Passion:

"Surely the board knows what democracy is," E.B. White wrote. "Democracy is the score at the beginning of the ninth. It is an idea which hasn't been disproved yet, a song the words of which have not gone bad. It's the mustard on the hot dog and the cream in the rationed coffee."

"In a year in which White's alma mater, The New Yorker, has endorsed a presidential candidate for the first time in its 80-year history, the Red Sox won the Series and Bruce Springsteen is singing his songs on the stump, is it too much to hope that Franklin D. Roosevelt's delighted reaction to White's description -- "Them's my sentiments exactly" -- still rings true?"

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