[Strangler Lewis]

Oh, he!!, I had hoped to get some work done this morning.

First, the easy question: the only time I recall voting against my "norm" was when I voted for Pete Wilson over Kathleen Brown for governor. That was mostly a family loyalty thing since he had appointed my basically independent father-in-law to the superior court bench. I was able to rationalize this because I saw a news clip of Kathleen Brown being welcomed by a cheering crowd and she put up her right arm and went "Whooo!" like she was in a Bud Light ad or on one of those annoying cable car tour buses that used to pass under my apartment window full of people going "Whooo!" I hate people who go "Whooo!"

Now, let's see. Boiled down, I support the Democrats because, at least in this point in American history, they are the party that does not encourage, exploit and validate cruelty, meanness and hate. George Allen could be the Republicans' presidential candidate. 'Nuf said, really, but . . .

My father was a Holocaust survivor who came to America by himself at 12 as one of the One Thousand Children, the American equivalent of the British program that was the subject of the Oscar winning documentary some years back. His family lost everything in Germany, his father was murdered as were many of his relatives. He lived with secularly Jewish foster families in the midwest until he was reunited with his mother in a poor neighborhood in Manhattan.

My mother was a child of the Depression, although she never went without food on the table. She was basically raised by her grandmother because her mother, and two sisters joined the Father Divine cult, where they were told to renounce their families.

My father served in World War II, which he did not particularly enjoy. One of his principal missions involved Okinawa mop-up, caves, flamethrowers and anything that moved.

My father did quite well in New York. At first, I went to a fairly diverse public school where I got along with everyone. However, the principal told my parents that if they wanted me to be challenged in school, they needed to move. So they moved to the Jewish side of Forest Hills where nearly all the black kids at school came on the bus (except for the ones from the orphanage down the block) and were not in the gifted classes. That we were different from them was made abundantly clear, but it never seemed right. Thinking back, my father often would drive me through the Bowery, where the men down on their luck on the streets were white, to emphasize how lucky I was. He never drove me through Harlem. My parents were basically Nixon silent majority Republicans. Fear of black crime was a major issue for them. Fear is not an attractive emotion.

I did not view religion as a terribly positive force growing up. It divided my otherwise non-traditional family eight ways to Sunday. Everybody had opinions; everybody was critical and mean. People in my building would tell me I was going to the wrong temple. My aunt who left the Father Divine cult after marrying a black man she met there probably got it the worst.

We moved to California when my father was 52 so he could open his own business and not have to travel so much. The business failed, and my parents went bankrupt a few years later. At that age, my father was not able to rebuild a career path as an employee. Suffice it to say that the various safety nets came in handy.

Doing criminal law, I have mostly encountered human beings with horrible backgrounds and/or mental illness. Some of my clients it's hard not to dismiss as total sh**s, but I try.

What else? Lots of friends of different races and religious backgrounds. Lots of gay friends. As I see it, the Republican tent is big enough to embrace racists, sexists, homophobes and people who would rather give millions to the prison industrial complex because it feels good to punish the poor and the black rather than give that money to schools or programs that might prevent crime. As far as personal responsibility goes, the party is also home to speeding pick-up drivers who can't be bothered to wear seat belts and who kill themselves and others. (Admittedly, the surveys do not show the political affilitation of Sonoma County's unseatbelted, pickup driving fatalities, but it's a fair guess.)

I disagree with the above viewpoints that people come to their political positions calmly and rationally. I think people are driven by emotion, and those emotions are not always pretty. I like to harken back to Jonathan Swift's essay, "A Modest Proposal." Humor aside, the point of that was that politics serves our baser emotions and you can get away with almost anything cruel and outlandish if you couch it in reasonable terms. The Republicans have mastered this rhetorical device. I don't care for it.