Advice to the Loser

By Crispin Sartwell

The winner of yesterday's election will be living in a barrage of flashbulbs and congratulations, dominating the front pages of the papers and the awareness of the world.

But America can be unkind to losers. Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis, for example, were expected to slink off after their defeats and have ever since been as invisible as their party could make them. What awaits the man who comes in second is a sudden plunge from fame and influence to antidepressants and instant obscurity.

The loser will no doubt say that he's looking forward to spending more time with his family. The family may not be so thrilled. He's likely to be a bit of black cloud around the old homestead, even if he can find the bathroom and recognize his kids after all these years on the road. Once the initial self-recrimination, vilification, and substance abuse are over, what should the loser do?

There are a few tasks that either man could execute successfully. Replace Bob Dole as celebrity spokesmodel for Viagra. "Write" a wise memoir that is instantly remaindered. Become a respected senior statesman, gumming still the empty catch-phrases to which he's devoted his adult life. Sign up as a lobbyist for the Chinese Red Army. Buddy up to John McCain.

I have a dream that the winner could become an embittered and caustic old man, resolved to tell the truth about how the American political system works, a la Barry Goldwater. He could grin ruefully about how he sacrificed his deepest beliefs on the altar of soft money. He could start speaking the unvarnished truth, having nothing left to lose. But I fear that each is so used to living according to the polls that he is permanently disabled from saying anything either extemporaneous or controversial. Neither man has Goldwater's, um, orbs.

So I have some other ideas.

Advice to Gore, if he loses.

One word: therapy. Underneath all the masks and cant there is a real person there yearning to breathe free. Politics helped you hide this self from everyone, even yourself. This seeming disaster is your salvation, an opportunity to "get in touch with" or "find" yourself. So consult R.D. Laing, the Course in Miracles, the Great Tao. Move to California, climb a tree, and learn to play the flute.

But whatever you do, put a moratorium on television for the next few years. Think of television as a temptation. The camera is an evil machine that sucks out your soul through your eyeballs, dresses you in a funeral suit, stiffens you into a kind of rigor mortis, and removes all significance from your words.

After the moratorium, join the Green Party. You weren't a bad Vice President as these things go, at least when you weren't on television. Perhaps Ralph Nader needs a running mate in 2004. And I have a feeling that you agree more with Nader than with yourself.

Advice to Bush, if he loses.

School. Now is the opportunity to obtain the education you squandered the first time around. You're still governor of Texas. Give yourself a voucher. Go to one of Austin's fine high schools and take civics, world history, algebra, and above all English.

Invest with Dick Cheney's firm as you plan for a long retirement. Figure out whether you really are a recovering alcoholic. Either way, now is your opportunity to do some serious drinking. Pound down a few at the country club with Brett Scowcroft and Danny Quayle. Help pick the next Republican nominee by working behind the scenes. Become your daddy.

And now some words of consolation for both men: I'm just sorry, for your sake and mine and the nation's, that you couldn't both lose.

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