No Clock

Since 2004 I have lived in Seattle, Washington. It’s a hell of a town. Nice scenery, friendly people, a decent play by play guy. I get to watch Adrian Beltre on TV every night in the Summer and eat gourmet Thai food at ballgames. But I’m from Los Angeles.
When you move, you realize that the place you left doesn’t wait for you. Even with all that 405 construction, the wheels never stop turning in LA. Things change so that every time you come home there are less places to come home to. Less places that stay the same. My parents house stays the same. In n’ Out burgers and Tito’s Tacos taste the same. Dodger Stadium looks almost the same, smells exactly the same, and thankfully, Vin Scully sounds perfectly the same.

When I lived in Culver City I was at Dodger Stadium as much as possible. Top deck, pavilion, it didn’t matter. Just being in the stadium was enough. It still is. I was raised to bleed blue. But it wasn’t until I left that I learned to appreciate the institution that is the Los Angeles Dodgers. I realized how much of my love for the city and for the sport was based on the team. I started to care about more than just the roster, but the state of the club. The stadium, fan and player behavior, ownership beyond the numbers.

It disappointed me when Frank McCourt hired Ned Colletti over Kim Ng to be our General Manager. Not just from a baseball perspective, but from a cultural perspective. Colletti, for all his faults as an “old school” baseball executive, has been nothing but class. And perhaps more surprisingly, so has the McCourt family. Things started rough, but I’m proud of Frank McCourt. I’m proud to have an owner willing to invest in not just the team but the aura of Dodger baseball.

Wednesday I went to my first and probably only game at Dodger Stadium this year. It was the first time I’ve been to Camp Day since I was a camper. It was a midweek day game against an opponent whose starting lineup featured no players batting over .273. It was a chance to see a Cy Young candidate in the middle of a Pennant Race. It was a shame he got raked. It was a joy to watch the washouts and youngsters that seem to balance this team like polar opposites win the most exciting game of the year. It was a blast eating my free wings after the game in a Hooters full of Dodger fans.

It was good to be home.

If one presidential candidate embodies my eternal optimism about American politics, it is ex Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee. It’s a shame that Mike Huckabee and I disagree on practically every issue.

Huckabee is a conservative. In fact he is a very conservative. On his website, he brags of being the first governor in America to get a license for concealed handguns, he claims that his faith defines him, and he says absolutely nothing relevant about foreign policy. Aside from guns, Mike Huckabee is anti everything: Gays, abortions, Mexicans, even the IRS.

But listen to him talk. You will find that for all the intelligent design theorizing, Roe V. Wade bashing, and threatened wall-building, Mike Huckabee has been nothing if not congenial. He has an impenetrable wall of kindness. He makes jokes that are actually funny. Mike Huckabee is the real compassionate conservative. And yet he plays in a rock band.

Between complimenting the Clintons on keeping their marriage together and warning Americans about the dangers of obesity (he lost 110 pounds and now runs marathons), Huckabee can be seen running the least self-righteous positive campaign in the history of the world. Hell, even the 2004 version of John Edwards would tear up at the sound of ol’ Huck’s voice.

Huckabee’s record as governor of Arkansas was strong but relatively low-key. Due to his predecessor’s resignation he served a little over two terms and did a bang-up job supporting an influx of Hurricane Katrina victims. Time Magazine called Huckabee one of America’s five best governors. And as a campaigner he’s proved solid. Starting out with no money or national credibility, strong straw poll showings have shot him up to the middle tier of Republican candidates. A tier he now shares with Sen. John McCain who seems to be moving the opposite direction.

Huckabee won’t win Iowa and probably won’t win the nomination. But if has a shot, New Hampshire will be key. Huckabee’s most daring and intriguing platform is the Fair Tax. The fair tax is basically libertarian: Essentially it eliminates the IRS and create a ten percent consumption tax on everything with certain rules and restrictions for spending below the poverty line, etc. New Hampshire is the most actively libertarian state in the union. In fact, libertarian groups there have even contemplated secession. If Huckabee can tap those loonies with his fair tax and pro-gun ideas he could find success. The only drawbacks are his very invasive ideas about social policy like abortion and same-sex marriage.

But none of that matters too much to me. Because of his politics, I won’t be voting for Mike Huckabee. I just appreciate his candor and the nature of his campaign. I appreciate the fact that he is running as a nice guy with strong convictions. The convictions of a pastor.

And I find it reassuring that there are candidates out there like him. People I can disagree with on nearly everything but still respect. Political candidates who can smile and mean it. After all, it only seems obvious that the truly compassionate conservative is the one who doesn’t call himself that.