Wiggle Room in Politics

If politics is the art of the possible, then this is best learned on the job by office-seekers on the local level. Right now we're in our Perpetual Presidential Primary Season; and several candidates have nary a lick of experience in government and making the possible really possible.

To do this, you have to go with a heap of give and take; as Billy Bob learned by dealing with citizens and customers in Possum Trot, MS. His compromising with the churches on the bikini barista question vaulted him into someone that people talked about him for the Town Commission after a spell, and he was elected. The key to it all is to let everyone think that they've gotten something on the deal that they can go home and show what they've gotten.

It's kind of like participation trophies for little kids. Not everyone can be Number One; but getting a little something to show the Maw-Maws and Paw-Paws and that you can put on your shelf is a really big deal.

Anyway, Billy Bob became a Commissioner and got to attend the meetings. Now it happened that the big, burning issue was whether to make Possum Trot wet or keep it dry. A devilish pairing of the local fundamentalist ministers and the bootleggers were in favor of keeping it dry; and a group of prospective alcohol vendors, Shop Local, and lazy people not inclined to drive to the nearest wet county provided the backbone of the Wets. Now the item on the agenda regarding alcohol was phrased in terms of a "keep Possum Trot dry" versus "let Possum Trot go wet." Billy Bob saw this as a choice that, no matter how it was decided, was not going to end well but would raise too many peoples' hackles a more than a mite. Sort of like proposing a leash laws for dogs.

Billy Bob privately met with the ministers and asked if they would accept half a loaf. Well, that seemed to catch hold with  them, so they asked, "How?"

Billy Bob said, "Well, would you go with a toned-down measure that allowed for beer and wine if we continued to keep out the hard stuff?"

Well, the ministers were less against this; but wanted a guarantee. If they went along with this halfway measure, would it mean liquor would still stay out?

"Billy Bob said, "We won't have legal, town-sanctioned liquor, at least." A second rule of politics should be not to promise more than you can deliver.

So they gave tacit support to the watered down measure, which the Drys also went for. The Wets, surprisingly enough, went along with this compromise.

It seems that people with a grain of sense would realize that they couldn't have it all. I wish the Republicans and Democrats would see it that way on the national level.

On Election Day, wide-awake venti-sized bikini barista Ellie May cast the first vote.  The compromise won by a close shave.

I'm more confident in the judgment of a bikini barista with a few stiff doses of caffeine than the candidates running for national office.