Political races have always fascinated me. Now that all of the political conventions are over and the major and minor parties have chosen their candidates, the business of securing office has begun. I often think of this as the "silly" season, right before the World Series and Halloween. In this electronic, instant communications age, we will be bombarded by numerous press conferences, endless exhortations of political pundits and many annoying phone calls from party workers just as we sit down to dinner. Like our appetites, sometimes the process is insatiable.

I recall as a youngster selling newspapers on the porch of the old Grand Union Hotel in Saratoga Springs and witnessing a fistfight between supporters of the rival presidential candidates in l948. The political pundits had all but given the election to Republican candidate Dewey as the Democratic Party had split over Truman's civil rights record. The "Solid South" bolted the Democratic Party and nominated Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina as the candidate of the "Dixiecrats." Truman refused to play dead and embarked on a 30,000-mile whistle-stop campaign wherein he made over 300 speeches, often from the rear of a train platform, in his famous "Give 'em Hell Harry" style. On election eve, the pundits declared Dewey the victor only to wake up in the morning and find that Truman had won. Now, the victors are projected 30 seconds after the polls close in the Eastern Time Zone.

Other silly things that candidates do is create slogans or images that they feel will appeal to voters. In the election of 1956, Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee, the Democratic Vice-Presidential candidate, wore a coonskin cap to suggest his American heritage. Vice-President Gore, also a Tennessean, may want to consider adopting that image. Who could resist the simple slogan "I Like Ike"? Maybe George Bush could emulate him with "Let George Do It." Other slogans that became popular catchwords were "Where's the beef?" and "It's the economy, stupid." President McKinley never left his home in Canton Ohio in l896. Voters were expected to drop by and shake his hand during his "Front Porch" campaign. It worked!

All of the above is tame when it comes to British politics. The House of Commons is notorious for its elections, which occur whenever the "in" party loses a vote on a crucial issue. In the election of l784, the leader of the Whig Party, Charles Fox, had to run for re-election and sought the help of the Duchess of Devonshire, a noted beauty of her day and Princess Diana's ancestor. She defied convention and openly canvassed the electors for Fox. She was ridiculed in the press and cartoonists had her kissing voters and offering them bribes. Fox was also the subject of ridicule and it was said of him, "...Fox had to kiss a butcher's wife and all his daughters before he was shoved out of the house with the comment he might kiss his arse in the bargain, but he'd see him damned before he voted for him...."

Charles Dickens in "The Pickwick Papers" once described a local election for a member of the House of Commons as follows:

"It appears then... like the people of many other small towns... that every man... felt himself bound to unite, heart and soul, with one of the two great parties that divided the town-the Blues and the Buffs. Now the Blues lost no opportunity of opposing the Buffs, and the Buffs lost no opportunity of opposing the Blues; and... whenever the Buffs and Blues met... at public meeting... disputes and high words arose between them... If the Buffs proposed to new skylight the market-place, the Blues got up public meetings, and denounced the proceeding; if the Blues proposed the erection of an additional pump in the High Street, the Buffs rose as one man and stood aghast against the enormity. There were Blue shops and Buff Shops, Blue inns and Buff inns... there was a Blue aisle and a Buff aisle in the very church itself...."

I look forward to the "silly" season as did Dickens. Its great fodder for columns such as this.