In many ways they should be seeing just your typical 64-year-old political customer--who usually votes.
Now, it’s true, my pattern of participation may have some slightly atypical--though probably not unique--characteristics. To this point in time, I’ve never contributed money to a political campaign. But I've made and displayed many signs expressing my point of view about politicians. And I've often included some political commentary, relevant to the main topic, when writing articles that were primarily about other subjects.
I define myself as an independent.
I once passed Citizen Joe Kernan when he was walking in the state house with two or three aides. A that time he was Lieutenant Governor. As an aside to his aides, or perhaps as a stage whisper that I was intended to hear, Kernan stated that I was, “almost a machine.”
It was flattering that he would know who I am. As for his description of me, I take it to have meant that was I perhaps bright--but also somehow unworldly or unnatural. The comment was literally dehumanizing, and I imagined that it may have been Kernan’s way of absolving himself for using me to feather his nest in some obscure fashion that I didn’t know about.
That nest of his was already rather well feathered, or so I imagined.
Since the state police have jurisdiction in Indianapolis, and since I’m the victim of criminal voyeuristic attention, I decided that I could assign partial blame to Joe, at least after after he became “Governor Joe," with with authority over state police.
When he ran for four more years as governor, I made a sign to display downtown:
“In November, vote against Joe “peek-a-boo” Kernan’s state-sponsored voyeurism.”
Other politicians have also seemed to know who I am, the Bush family not excepted. Again, that’s flattering. But in the past twenty-five or thirty years no one in politics has ever taken my civil liberties seriously.
That’s doubly annoying because just about any politician can talk for hours about the importance of civil liberties.
Mr. Ed Sorensen, the former Sports Director for Channel 6 once referred to me as, “the most dangerous man in America.” Like Kernan’s remark, Sorensen’s epithet was the sort of language one uses as an excuse for trampling on someone else’s rights—as Channel 6 did by participating in bugging and harassment activities during the time Sorensen was at that station.
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