Now that Al Reynolds has made the national news for his recent remarks at an NAACP sponsored event, my personal desire to write about it is diminished.

I started hearing about this guy because my wife invited me to lunch with his wife, Tracy. I haven’t seen the two of ’em together, this Al and Tracy Reynolds, but that doesn’t mean I can’t picture it: they make an odd pair. He older, portly; she younger – much younger – and zaftig. She’s short, small, present, not at all unpleasant and certainly intelligent. Al doesn’t really have a cultivated bone in his over-sized body.

It did not dominate her conversation, the fact of her husband’s political ambitions. Nor does the Christian faith loom large in my first impression of her. I knew about these features up front, as Del had reported them.

Del reported that Tracy’s husband was unemployed, conservative, and although running for office, without means. Tracy was supporting the two of them on her salary as a legal secretary.

I was, therefore, surprised and wincing a bit on Tracy’s behalf, quite sure of a train wreck ahead, when I learned that Al, as a write-in, had won the Republican primary to contest the smooth incumbent, Democrat Mike Frerichs for the State Senate’s 52nd district seat.

The train wreck came in the event above, at the moment Al uttered his generalizations about young black men and women. This is not the work of a professional politician. We know these to be generalizations, and demonstrably false. Al is, as he says, ‘a man of the people,’ a man of faith, foolish and untrained. To concatenate the two ideas, it is foolish to run for office without training. I don’t really think Al’s a racist, but he’s not well versed in the art of politically correct speech. His comments apply more to himself: he’s unemployed, supported by a strong woman, and seduced by the drug of politics. If he in fact founded the Indiana or Illinois Tea Party, they have distanced themselves from him in the wake of this event.

The power trip of politics is crack cocaine, and Al Reynolds is in deep. More power to him, but I think he’s doomed this time around. The car they bought on credit will become another burden for Tracy to bear. The hopes of winning this public office will be dashed along with her hopes of getting out of the workaday world. I can’t imagine the world in which this man is electable as a State Senator. It’s not far off perhaps, not a brutal stretch of imagining, but it’s on the other side of the learning curve in which one learns not to say the first thing that pops into one’s head.

At the moment, a few day’s before the election, the man is in hiding when he should be out front. Tragic, all too human, an example of a man in the grip of his demons on public display. Asked by the Republican Party to withdraw, all he can do is lie low. He can hope his obvious lies do not emerge into wider view. Luckily, he’s not visible enough to warrant serious investigative reporting. His opponent has the good grace to focus on his message and not sling mud.  I’m in the peculiar position of having ‘inside information,’ and my access will last only so long as my own obscurity keeps this blog semi-private. Oh, that and the fact that the election is almost upon us. If, as I expect, Al loses, he’ll be getting the hook from the national stage. If he wins…! That really is crazy talk. But if I were going to investigate, I’d start with an accurate history of the local Tea Party, and Al Reynolds’ actual roll in it. What does this guy do for a living? Anything? There, I’ve asked the question!