It was Election Day, and the long nightmare for Coby Rodman, who was running for Congress, was over.
I thought that Coby would be bitter, particularly when his opponent, Paul Klaassen, ran commercials of Coby kicking his dog (it was done with a digital computer). But Rodman was sanguine. "It was a close race, and I pray that the best man wins.""That's very gracious of you, Coby," I said. "Especially since Klaassen told the voters that Dr. Kevorkian would be your health adviser if you are elected."
"I'm sure that there was no malice intended," Coby told me. "In the heat of battle candidates tend to say things that aren't necessarily true. I probably made misstatements about him that upset him, though I tried to avoid them."
"With everyone saying that this has been the dirtiest election ever, how can you be so magnanimous about your opponent?"
Coby smiled, "Politics is just another gentlemen's sport, like croquet. All we're trying to do is knock the ball through the wicket without getting dirt on our white trousers. "
"Yet some people have played dirty."
"No one respects them," Coby assured me.
"Were you ever tempted to resort to a commercial that threw mud?"
"Only once," said Coby. "But then I called my campaign staff together and posed the question, `Would you respect me if I attacked Klaassen personally and claimed that his wife didn't have a green card?' One of my people said, `Does his wife have to have a green card?'
"I replied, `No, but the public doesn't know that.' The staff unanimously urged me not to do it. My manager said that if we couldn't win without resorting to dirty tricks, we should get out of the race right away. So we haven't run the commercial even though it might cost me the election."
"No wonder Klaassen said that he was proud to run against you," I told Coby admiringly. "Now you just have to wait for the results. It must be a very suspenseful time."
"Winning isn't what counts. It's the chase. I had a good fight, and my wife has told me many times how much she enjoyed being introduced by me to the crowd as `my better half.' And I got to read all the books about O.J. Simpson and the trial on the campaign plane."
"Would you do it again?"
"Of course, I would. Where else can you run up a debt of $2 million and have your name smeared all over the newspapers for a job that pays $130,000 a year?"