Discussing politics is a lot less fun than getting drunk.
Two recent books, both collections of previously published material, demonstrate this axiom to perfection. Christian Potholm’s “Maine: The Dynamics of Political Change” is a wicked bore. Frank Kelly Rich’s “The Modern Drunkard” is a riot.
Potholm is a pollster and professor of government at Bowdoin College. Rich is a heavy drinker and the editor of Modern Drunkard magazine.
In case there’s still some question about which one you’d prefer to hang out with, consider this example of the Potholm wit: “There is value in a holistic approach to the dynamism of politics which transcends the moment by moment ‘instant’ analysis now so popular on cable television and talk radio.” Now, here’s Rich: “Buying a strange woman a drink is still cool. Buying all her drinks is dumb.”
Potholm, in a dreary series of essays originally written for the Sun Journal in Lewiston, criticizes columnists such as myself for writing about candidates and causes without taking “an objective look at how likely a political phenomenon is to last or disappear.” Then, he devotes chapters to praising such vanished phenomena as 2002 US Senate candidate Bob Dunfey (who dropped out after a couple of months), the congressional bid of John Nutting (who finished a weak fourth in the 2002 Democratic primary) and the 2002 gubernatorial campaigns of Jonathan Carter (Potholm: “Carter could hit 20% of the vote.” Reality: Carter barely managed 9 percent) and David Flanagan (Potholm, page 11: “Flanagan remains the best hope for those Brennan supporters who do not want Baldacci to win.” Potholm, page 35: “It has never been clear what Flanagan was counting on to propel his craft to the Blaine House”).
By contrast, Rich’s advice is both pragmatic (“Drink one girly drink in public and you will forever be known as the guy who drinks girly drinks”) and consistent. He’s always in favor of avoiding reality by getting snockered.
“Of course, critics will attempt to diminish this fine escape,” he warns, “by rather smugly stating that our troubles will still be there when we wake up. Which makes as much sense as canceling your vacation in Cancun because, hey, your job will still be there when you get back. They’re failing to grasp two very fundamental truths: 1) even a temporary escape is better than no escape at all, and 2) alcohol is very cheap in Mexico.”
Both Potholm and Rich devote lots of space to lists. Potholm’s tend to be roll calls of his friends and people he’d like to be his friends, all of whom, in his opinion, performed some rare feat of campaign ingenuity. In one case, he praises a colleague for being “consistently able to project outcomes when the voting patterns are turnout driven,” but doesn’t bother to explain what that means. In another, he credits a couple of pol pals with delivering the support of “the cruel and Independent yuppies,” without going to the trouble of identifying who makes up that heartless voting bloc.
