Guess what I’m thinking

Matt Pearl

In the early spring of 2000, my father called me at my college residence and told me he and Mom were going to buy The Tri-County News, the news publication for which he had worked for years in King City.

But before that for several years, he wrote a column that went on page 2 of the paper entitled ‘A Wondering Mind,’ a reincarnation of his weekly column he wrote for The Pella Chronicle in Pella, Iowa, years before. It was entitled ‘A Wandering Mind,’ the correct spelling for the middle word, but less mysterious and multi-layered.

I read my dad’s editorials, as many of our local readers did, for many years. It is his general style that I adopted in my own opinion writing. His compositions were very staccato, full of short paragraphs and rhetorical questions. I loved reading him, and imitation has proven to be my most sincere form of flattery toward him.

He had an unspoken rule of column writing, another of the directives I have attempted to take to heart in my own editorializing: Never let the readers feel comfortable enough that they know EXACTLY what you’re thinking.

The most common question I fielded from my readers in December: Who did you support for President? From what I wrote, folks couldn’t tell which candidate I supported –– which meant to me that my job was done to the family standard.

A friend asked me last week if I would endorse her candidacy for a prominent local political office. I don’t endorse anyone, I told her.

Oh, I vote. I have preferences, just the same as you. I make my ideas plainly known through my writings, but who and what I choose in the voting booth belongs to me.

The reason I have made mention of my father is that he is the individual who, by his written example, demonstrated to me the power of forcing people to approach issues with logic, rather than with partisanship.

In other words, if we want to talk about political candidacies, the best first action for us to take is, ironically, to remove the candidates from the discussion and focus solely on the issues. But unless you force them to do this, most folks can’t separate the candidate from his or her platform.

Don’t believe me? Consider the following statement: Most presidential votes in the 2016 election were cast either in disapproval of Hillary Clinton or disdain for Donald Trump.

If you agree with me, and you believe that the U.S. electorate voted against an unfavorable candidate rather than for their own ideals, then you see my point.

And each day I read the nationally syndicated columnists, who would argue for or against their chosen candidate, and think, Why are you writing this?

Why didn’t they write something to make folks dislike two such unlikeable characters, and cause their readers to focus upon policies and platforms?

It would have been an unenviable task for any editorial writer to make the case for Mr. Trump or Mrs. Clinton –– why did they even try?

I certainly do not believe myself to be an expert on the subject, and my father would say the same for his own column writing. But I for one take great enjoyment from treating truth as an elusive object: just when you think your party or candidate has it figured out, his or her opponent makes a point that you can acknowledge as a good one.

So if you can’t get a good read for where my political allegiances lie, then my work here is being done. But if it bothers you that you can’t pin down my partisan affiliations, you’ll have to take it up with my dad.

Matt Pearl owns and operates newspapers in King City, Albany, and Grant City.