The political baseball question

I became unsettled at the Diamondbacks-Mets baseball game. Not quite 40,000 people showed up to watch Mustard win the condiments race and the Diamondbacks lose.

One Met fan put it bluntly, "The best team in baseball is here in Phoenix; yet, the stadium isn't filled."

True. It's boring when the Mets win here as they often do. Low attendance though could have been due to the Mets, the cost of gas, a nice Sunday afternoon, foreclosure on the home mortgage, or a job layoff.

I asked myself, "What if Arizonans really do not know what to do in hard times?"

My wife and I faced one big question culture in our Ahwatukee settlement days. Many people were geographically cut from their relatives who knew traditions of social life. For example, death took no holiday in Ahwatukee, and when it visited, it did not bring along the family adviser either. A death here spawned questions. Who to contact? What to do next? Is the minister really up to date on funerals? No? Well, who is? Is it OK to laugh when my child just died?

Finally, empathetic older citizens in Ahwatukee stepped up to help out. Neighbors who stayed in their houses became neighbors, real neighbors. These neighbors were not recently chummed into Ahwatukee by percentage greedy real estate agents. With these neighbors social answers were just a school, church or a house away. Because those people did not "flip" their property, someone now exists in Ahwatukee who can give some direction. Yet, there's the one big issue waiting for an answer.

What if the economy is really going South? What if the freeways really become easy to drive at 7:30 a.m. on a weekday because we cannot afford gas? What if we can afford the house but not the electricity to operate the "hi-def" TV? These are the tough questions, people.

Arizonans, pre-great-migration-to-Arizona Arizonans, learned quickly that the concept of neighbors was different than neighbors in the Philadelphia brownstones or the New York boroughs or the Chicago North side-South "siders." Culture clash is what it is called. Native-born Arizonans understand that there is no such word as "youse."

The prescription for political culture clash is baseball. When the impact of the economy hits and hurts, ask the politicians a baseball question.

If polls do not know about "Sedona" red rather than teal blue, they probably will answer weakly on the tax supported war in Iraq, health care, which you cannot afford without taxes, and the economy, which is killing everyone. Or ask them why it was better to get Dan Haren from Oakland than Barry Zito and to compare the results to the current economy. Ask the baseball question.

The candidates will surprise you with their metaphorical and allegorical answers. That folks is one way of finding out if your candidates can relate to you during hard times.

Mike Durham, retired after 31 years with the state of Arizona, holds two master's degrees. Last year, he was appointed to the Cold Case Task Force by Senate President Tim Bee. Durham has lived in Ahwatukee Foothills since 1982 and can be contacted at mike.durham@durhammike.com.