tom

Shards of green glass fly through the air, spinning down to the floor. I stood there stupidly for a couple of seconds looking at what I had done. I began to realize how ridiculous I had gotten. I am standing here in a poorly light apartment yelling at a Television. I was yelling to no one. I look around the small confined apartment and look at all the meaningless clutter and trash. I began to realize what my life had become. Then I snap out of my philosophical state when I hear the sound from my T.V. “and that is why I accept your nomination for President of the United States”. I fill with rage and all self conscious thoughts were out weighted by the anger that had just entered me. I begin to shout, “We are the Democratic Party and this is who we are nominating!” I look down at my television and see people artificially smiling and waving. “Our Nominee is a clean cut joke who wants to lower taxes! We are the liberals and that is who we are nominating!” all of a sudden I hear my phone ring. I look down at my phone and see it is Colin. I take a minute to collect my self and pick it up.  “Mr. Senator”, Sit there in silence for a second thinking of how to reply finally a just quietly say “yes”. “You should of Run”, My mind began to race and I think back to last year when Colin came in to my office and interviewed for a job and then wasted no time in asking me to run for president. The only thing I can say to him is “maybe your right” which is as close to admitting a mistake that I will ever come. I add “but there is nothing we can do about it now except deiced between the lesser of to evils”. He says “ya” in his typical laid back voice and quickly hangs up the phone. I am happy that he called because he gave me time to cool off and collected my self I look at the broken glass and deiced that I could not stay alone. I stand up from my sofa and take one last look at the T.V. and sigh. I turn off the T.V. and slow lumber over to the door. When I reached the street I breathe in the thick summer air. I realize that I did not know were I was going. I figured If I walk a couple blocks I would find some where. I diced to start walking and I put my head down and my thoughts began to find there way back to the election. When I looked up I saw a series of identical brick building. The Bars over the window are casting a shadow on the abandon steel warehouse. I begin to realize had a aimlessly walked in too the heart of the Bronx. I glanced across the street and saw a herd of teenagers were purple and yellow. I quickly looked away but all was I line of people straight a head of me. When I got closer I realized that it was a line of homeless people waiting outside of a Church of Christ. I had seen theses things before but I began to see it in a new light. I realized that that this was poverty. I realized why the economy is the one number one issue in America. These people do not care about the stock market they care about getting a job. All this does get me thinking about the election again. I see the glowing the neon lights of a diner. I walk in and sit at the counter. I look to my left and I see a large white man in a ridiculous looking red leisure suit. He does not have a bred but he has not shaved and his unkempt hair is turning gray. Down at the end of the counter there is a young guy reading a big text books My mind wondered from the old dirty dinner. I thought of the people I had seen tonight. I realized that there was nobody who cared about them except each other. It dawned on me that there is still a class of Americans who have nothing and even the ones who money and food a protection did not have their share. For the first time in my life I realized that America was not “of the people”. This was a principle I had a grown up with. Our government is not made up of the people it is made up of money. All of the power and might of America was under of the command of is a certain class of people. It was the upper fringe of people who were dictating the entire direction of this country. These people will not be helped until someone stands up for them. They are the poor, the oppressed, and the outcastes. A vibration in my pocket brings me back to the dinner and I look and It I was shocked to see while I had wondered in to the deepest depths of my mind. The call was from Colin and I picked up the phone and immediately said “how do you go about running as an independent?” Things began to move fast. The next day I declared my intent to run, making it a three way race between me, Jefferson “Beau” Williams, the southern concretive democrat, and Howard Hughes, The self funded corporate giant who was running as the republican candidate. Only took a couple of days for new polls to come out. It turns out that I was not the only democrat disappointed with our party’s nominee. So I had become part of the first true three way race since 1912. I began to campaign all over the country. In my 15 years of politics this was the first time I had run for office outside of the state of Massachusetts. My camping began to pick up more steam then any independent campaign before. After campaigning for three months some polls showed a three way tie. As my campaign grew more popular I was hammered more and more by the media. They began to ask me about my divorce, my childhood, my religion and most often my “anger problems”. Finally they began to ask me about my politics, that is when I would win votes. As soon as a reporter would ask me about Unions, China, The Middle East, Taxes or any other real issue. My entire body would fill with passion and I would surrender control to that passion. I would talk with no reservations. At that Point I was not a politician. My sense of right and my enormous passion for justice began to push out thoughts of polls and political adviser. The other two campaigns would bring up my anger issues and call me a “New England Liberal”. All this did was invoking my intense New England pride. I never dined allegations of being Liberal. I spat on titles like that, I believed that if the voters look at my stance on the issues and my decision making abilities instead of titles like “liberal” they would see that neither of the other two candidates would even stack up to me. By October I had established that I was a many of the people. Some were through my hundreds of speeches I had come up with the phrase “Taking America Back”. On October 15 it became official when the Montana election commission declared I would be on the ballot there. I was the first independent candidate to get on the ballot in all fifty states. Despite this every poll still had it to close to call. I had been voice for the people. I had listened to their needs and their wants. I taken on the American political system with less money than either of the other two candidates had in their Swiss bank accounts. I had not built a group of amazing spin doctors. I had merely surrounded myself with smart people and told the truth. On Halloween, ten days before the election, I was shown having a lead in the popular vote. It was amazing I had taken away voters from the two twisted parties that had contorted are country for the past 50 years. The next ten days were a blur I moved all throughout the country. Stopping any were someone would listen to me tell them that I should be the next president of America. Finally I put my hand around a leveler and my vote official. Later that night I sat in front of four TVs in an expensive hotel room and watched the results pour in. As expected it was close race. Finally at 1:30 I got a call from Williams and it became a two way race. An hour later the election had come down the state of California Its 55 electoral votes were all either of us need to reach the white house. I was gulled to the TV. There was nothing to say. The only sound coming filling room who was crowd with members of my campaign team was the sound of one of the TVs. After the four o’clock I was left alone in my room. At 4:30 California was called for Hughes. I was in a state of shock. I could not believe anyone could look at the two of us and think he would be a better president. I did not fell my normal sate of anger but a felling dispersion filled me I quickly picked up the phone in my hotel and called Hughes. He picked up and nonchalantly said “hello” in a cold deep voiced I responded with “you can have it” and hung up. I had not been removed from my state of shock. If I could not do it who could. I had dictated my entire life to helping the people that need my help the most and I could not even make a difference. I finished this election the same why I started alone and powerless. I saw an empty bottle from early in the night next to me I picked it and threw it against the wall and it shattered. I saw myself in the mirror and saw a single tear slowly migrating it’s way down my face. I had invested my hart and my soul into the American dream not for me but for the poor, the unwanted, and the people. I had done all I could. Things were not going to change I was just another hopeless pissed off citizen.

A sharp piece of glass caught my eye on the floor I picked it up and ran it jagged edged across my forearm it made a deep incision and blood rushed out of my opened cut. I did it again. I moved to the over to the other arm. After I while my arms and body were covered in blood and I became light headed and I fell to the ground and there I lay, the man who almost made a difference, almost a hero, almost savior for the American dream, a failure.