Sometimes the fight is more important than winning it
It can be tough, especially if we look at Richard and Mildred Loving, who battled systemic racism
DUCK, N.C. — Just a little more than two weeks remain until the Nov. 3 election and then what? Uncertainties cloud the path forward, but at least the noise emanating from closer in will dissipate.
Some. The ads will stop, finally, but the campaigns may echo for a while. Especially the presidential one.
And there will be difficulty for those who lose at all levels. Almost no one ever thinks about that part.
It can be tough. Just look at poor Bob Steinberg. He’s taken money from the health industry and, man, he’s just really, really awful.
We know about Bob’s awfulness because his opponent’s ads have filled the airwaves of Hampton Roads in recent weeks and, wait, who is this guy anyway?
Bob is in North Carolina. Not Virginia at all. His northeast senate district bangs up against the state line and you reach those voters by buying airtime from Hampton Roads broadcasters.
His opponent, Tess Judge, a businesswoman and civic leader, thinks “we can do better.” Bob wants you to know that she’s taken money from New York.
Huh? Bob is from New York. Originally, anyway. Then he was in Richmond, it seems, for about 20 years. Now he’s down here in North Cackalacky, being rotten to rural hospitals.
So says Tess and she wouldn’t just make that up, right? Bespectacled Bob, an affable looking gent in his 70s, could do for a librarian and must have a thick skin.
That would be a the least of it. A quick run through the Internet finds Bob being escorted out of a Chesterfield County Planning Commission meeting and, at other times, engaged in minor scuffles with political opponents.
Happy Bob can be Bad Bob in an instant, it appears.
You almost have to be. A friend reminded me this week of a conversation between Walter Mondale and George McGovern, both of whom took it on the chin in presidential election bids — in 1984 and 1972, respectively.
“When did you get over the loss?” Mondale asked. “When I do, I’ll let you know,” replied McGovern.
Based on general observation and friendships, many political contenders struggle with the “getting over.” Sometimes, like McGovern, they don’t get over it at all. It changes them and in not altogether happy ways.
Now, this close to an election, submerged in all the nonsense, public fatigue with the political species may be acute. I’m not getting far by urging sympathy for those who dive into the political grinder and come up short.
But there it is. It’s the human part of the democratic process. For every flag-flying, glorious victor you have another broken against the rocks, splayed out, decorated in seaweed.
Occasionally, remarkably, there is a third category: The soul who wins, then loses, then loses some more, wins again (maybe), but never tires of the effort. They just keep swinging.
And, in one particular case, they never stop smiling, joking, pursuing their convictions. That was Bernie Cohen.
Bernie died on Tuesday and I knew him in the early 1980s. We’d often end up at the same dinner table during the years he represented Alexandria in the House of Delegates.
Bernie Cohen was a liberal’s liberal. A fighter of causes. Ensure death with dignity. Freeze nuclear weapons. End smoking in public places. Raise state income taxes. Tend to the
poor.
His office sat not far from the fellow who employed me, Charlottesville Del. Mitch Van Yahres. They were both Democrats, both excessively open to ideas, both natives of the Empire State.
Virginia needed to be shown the light, you know, and they enjoyed jurisdictions supportive of such effort. A ready willingness infused their days and laughter comforted their setbacks.
There were many, many setbacks. Which mattered and also didn’t, because there was always tomorrow. It was worth the trying.
There’s something to be said for that approach, if you can make it work.
Bernie of course came to state legislative endeavor already famous. With Philip Hirschkop, in 1967, he successfully argued before the U.S. Supreme Court against Virginia’s ban on interracial marriage.
Loving v. Virginia. When Bernie prevailed — he was then a young ACLU attorney, but a few years out of law school — similar laws in other states fell. That case destroyed the residue of an insidious past.
Maybe Bernie figured any victories after that would simply
put icing on the cake. He could risk some losses. It was hardly the worst thing. That made Bernie Cohen rare and wonderful.
After writing editorials for the Daily Press and The Virginian-Pilot in the 1980s, Gordon C. Morse wrote speeches for
Gov. Gerald L. Baliles, then spent nearly three decades working on behalf of corporate and philanthropic organizations, including PepsiCo, CSX, Tribune Co. and the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation and Dominion Energy. His email address is gordonmorse@ msn.com.