Breaking the glass wall of national politics.

This past weekend, Senator John Kerry landed at our airport here in Madison on his way to a Frank Lloyd Wright-type luxury resort in Spring Green, WI.

Here is an image mad-women might try envisioning in their mind’s eye as they watch/listen to Kerry debate George W tonight:

It begins seven miles down the road from the resort in Spring Green. It ends at a local attraction called the House on the Rock. (http://www.thehouseontherock.com/index1.htm)

The Democratic presidential campaign has metaphorical similarities to the House on the Rock (HOR.) There are cobwebs in the corners and too many dimly lit rooms. Kerry‘s summer campaign was a lot like a tour in HOR. Folks were guided to rooms like the Weapons Exhibit (Dem convention in Boston), the Armor Collection (Vietnam, Swift boat charges) and the Circus Building (just who is in charge with the man on the windsurfer?)

In my mind both represent a retro version of American politics today. It is a kitschy, dusty collection of garage sale stuff. It’s no longer useful for my mommy-mantra of less is more and my world-citizen view of living simply.

Why do we hold on to this stuff?

National politics, in general, reeks of tired patriarchal ideas, war-speak and the delegation of women’s issues to second-class status. The Kerry campaign spent the entire summer on the HOR World’s Largest Carousel - going round and round and round – riding the same old animals, pumping out hypnotic music and no one progressing forward.

Tonight I’ll stand in my mind’s eye in the Infinity Room at HOR; perched in my metaphorical glass-walled room on a precipice overlooking a forest floor above middle America…waiting for the glass to break.