The Value of a conversation - an unsent letter

The following letter will remain unsent. It refers to tee-shirts. The design had a Republican RW&B elephant facing a Democrat RW&B donkey on the front, with the caption "Opponent is the dictionary antonym for Partisan," on the reverse in creative fonts. I printed up the tee-shirts and tried to give one to a friend. She pointed out that a partisan was a friend, and an opponent merely a foe. My idea of opponent politics as an antonym for partisan politics may be "romantic" but is not supported in the language of today. I cannot reproduce the white space of the printed copy here in cyberspace - I can be done, by my HTML is not up to it :-)

The White House Attn: David Plouffe 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Robert Johnson [address deleted] 01/18/2009 Dear Mr. Plouffe: I enclose a campaign Tee design that I developed out of the observation that I have weak party affiliations. It is literally the day after inauguration day, and as a citizen I have had no opportunity to evaluate President Obama as a leader. Coming from the standpoint that, as an American Citizen, it is to my advantage that ALL American Presidents do well, I use these presents to certify my goodwill before there is any opportunity for disagreement. While I qualify as swing vote (I voted AGAINST McCain because I did not think he could bring the GOP to heel in face of much needed change - his Maverick credentials and maturity notwithstanding,) I usually identify Republican. By examining the enclosed Tees, you may understand that I feel that Republicans are guilty of being too "partisan." To understand the "opponent" concept, it may be helpful to consider sports "rooting." In NFL Football, one is expected to "root, root, root, for the home team - if they don't win it's a shame..." similar to Baseball (the great American Pastime.) This is the Partisan practice, and a valid paradigm for applauding. The contrasting view is illustrated by European Soccer, where all attendees applaud superior efforts, without particular regard to Mascot and team. This correlates to the Opponent practice. In the Political arena, Opponent practitioners usually achieve their accomplishments in bi-partisan efforts where they "reach out across the aisle." While this is regarded as anti-gridlock by the polity, the opponent practitioners are usually viewed as potentially disloyal when evaluated as an ideologue. For their part, Partisans have more accomplishments, but disappear in the solidarity of Party, and "never" receive public accolades. In a related observation, there are Left-Wing liberals in both parties, but the greater proportion of them, affiliate Democrat. In the same way, I estimate that of the available Opponent practitioners, the greater proportion of them affiliate Democrat as well. Your reply will encourage me to request latitude to present the same design and explanation to a potentially less charitable audience (the GOP) - in a bi-partisan way. I hope to also use the opportunity to share an untested idea to differentiate Liberal/Conservative, starting from the definition of "liberal," that appeals to the Latin "Liber," freedom or liberty. I hope that President Obama will accomplish much of his Party Platform while in office. Thank you for your consideration. Yours Sincerely, (Robert Johnson)