by David Trumbull

October 22, 2004

To say it was disorienting is an understatement. When I walked into the dining room of the restaurant in East Cambridge’s Kendall Square I did not see my friends. Where could they be? I had left the table just a few minutes earlier. All I did was get up to use the restroom and when I returned I could not find our table! The tables, chairs, lighting fixtures, all looked different. Surely I hadn’t had that much to drink!

Just as the theme music from the old television program The Twilight Zone starts playing in my head, a waitress, seeing my puzzled look, explains that two restaurants, side-by-side, share the restrooms in the middle. I had turned left where I should have turned right and entered the sister establishment.

I had another Rod Serling life-narration episode during the American League Championship Series. Talk of the Red Sox breaking the curse of 1918, along with a short-lived up-tick in John Kerry’s poll numbers, spooked me. What if this is the year of the parallel universe in which the Sox win the World Series and a Massachusetts Liberal is elected President?

Well, that would be an upset. But it won't happen. Of course, the Red Sox will win the World Series -- if not this year, then next. But John Kerry as President? Never! On issue after issue: the war on terrorism, tort reform, partial-birth abortion, tax relief for middle class Americans, John Kerry is a Massachusetts liberal. As President Bush said of Kerry in one of the debates: "There is a mainstream of American politics, and you sit on the far left bank."

The last Northern Democratic to win the presidency was John F. Kennedy nearly a half century ago. The Democratic Party of today has little if anything in common with the Democratic Party of John F. Kennedy. Kennedy was a hawk on defense and a strong advocate for lower taxes. On social issues such as abortion it was, if anything, more conservative than the Republicans of the time. But that was then. Now the extremist John Kerry wing controls the Democratic Party.

As President Ronald Reagan said, "I didn't leave the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party left me." The Great Communicator may have come into politics by way of the left door, but he exited the right one. Nationally more and more Democratic officer-holders are switching to swell the ranks of the Republican Party. And as for John Kerry and the liberals in Congress -- well, it's twilight in their world of out-of-the-mainstream politics.

David Trumbull is the chairman of the Boston Ward Three Republican Committee; he may be contacted at (617) 742-6881 or chairman@ward3boston.org. Boston's Ward Three includes the North End, West End, part of Beacon Hill, downtown, waterfront, Chinatown, and part of the South End.