Susan Senator

No matter what I say about how I hate local politics, I am a diehard Brookline pol. Especially on the local election day, which is today. There is nothing like Election day in early May, where no matter where I go in town, I run into people I know carrying signs, wearing buttons, and handing out flyers. There is a lot of hugging and hand-shaking. It is friendly, neighborly, and a really great example of grass-roots democracy.

People gather at the schools or fire stations or public housing, where all sixteen (# corrected) of our precincts are housed. No matter what side of the issues you are on, on Election day you stand with everyone involved, and you shmooze. Election day is a giant Yenta-Convention, a total Schmoozefest. Those in the know realize that they must stand at the polls all day long and work for every single vote, or be sure they have coverage in each precinct.

In my precinct there are people who are staunchly “conservative,” which in Brookline, Massachusetts probably does not come near to meaning what it means in, say, Midwestern United States or Arizona. (Note that my observations are strictly from a generally non-conservative person’s viewpoint. I am fascinated with the Other Side, and I sometimes find myself with them, because I try to vote in a non-knee-jerk fashion.) Here, “conservative” generally means you are probably reluctant to raise taxes, and will require a year of studying an issue and then the blessing of the Board of Selectmen and the Advisory Committee before you will consider voting for that sort of change. The stuff that you vote readily for are things like new building developments, unless they happen to be in your own back yard. I am not trying to be nasty here; I am only stating my perspective as someone who has been in Brookline politics for lo, these past ten years.

There are also the strange political animal called “Moderates,” which to me are the equivalent of lukewarm bathwater. I don’t think I’ve ever been moderate in anything. I say choose a side and run with it! If you’re wrong, admit that, smile, and move on. (dot org)

Those who qualify as “liberal” often prefer the term “progressive,” and I don’t know why. I love being allied with the Classical Liberals of Enlightenment and 1776 fame. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Social Contract), Ben Franklin (who founded my alma mater, and place where I met Ned, the University of Pennsylvania, by the way) and Peter the Great (who founded St. Petersburg) were Classical Liberals. Personal foibles aside, these were great men who came up with some pretty great ideas, or at least stole from others some pretty great ideas and made them even better.

In Brookline, however, you don’t need to build a city or a university to be a great liberal. You probably need to be on Brookline PAX, (for “peace”) which is largely a throwback, aging hippie, venerable old pro-peace, pro-labor, pro-affordable housing and diversity, pro-ACLU, and anti-trans fats-and-SUVs establishment. I am on their board, and though I do not agree with much of what they do, (though I own a Volvo, it is an SUV) I appreciate their hard-working idealism. PAX forces Brookline to be the best it can possibly be. Being born of two hippies, (my father introduced me to the Beatles and listened to the soundtrack of Hair when I was a little kid) I have a soft spot for the idealism of the ’60’s, and for the socialism of my grandparents (my grandfather’s family were union organizers way back when). We are Classic New York Jewish Liberals and proud of it.

The Brookline conservatives force the PAXils (my term) to be more pragmatic, to hone their arguments and harness their statistics. And the PAXils force the conservatives to rise above their pocketbooks and think about the greater good. And on Election day, the best of both is brought out as they wrangle for the tiny percentage of voters who straggle into the polls until 8 p.m. At 8 p.m., I will be the one to tally up the votes for the Override, and I hope to God both parts of it passes, otherwise some pretty serious, ugly cuts are on their way to my beautiful town.