As I write this column, our national elections are about to happen and, unless another stalemate takes place, we will know the identity of our new president by the time you read this.

I hope you have had the pleasure of watching election returns with friends sympathetic to your favorite candidates. From experience I know how painful it can be to find yourself, at such a time, among people whose philosophy differs sharply from your own.

On November 4, 1972, Bob, one of my closest friends, invited me to watch returns from the Nixon-McGovern race. After accepting the invitation with eager anticipation, I discovered that Bob had also brought into the circle his Republican brother and one of their most conservative friends.

Those two fellows were rooting strongly for Nixon to be re-elected, and for as many Republicans as possible to be elected to other offices. I cringed at the prospect.
As the returns rolled in, it became quickly evident that McGovern would get snowed under. Unlike me, the American electorate at large did not realize what a treasure we had in the senator from South Dakota.

Starting at age 21, McGovern had been captain of a B-24 bomber crew that flew 35 sorties over Germany and other enemy countries. So he was a person of proven competence and courage. Unlike Nixon, he was also a man of high principle.

But, despite the Watergate scandal ─ for which McGovern had announced some early evidence ─ Nixon swept every state except our own. In view of later developments, we voters in this state would feel proud of the bumper sticker attached to thousands of our cars: “Don’t blame me. I’m from Massachusetts.”

But mine was a truly uncomfortable evening. The more states that reported, the more I squirmed in my chair. Ample glasses of wine proved inadequate to drown my sorrows. In a funk, I left my friend’s apartment as soon as I politely could.

Yet those were the days when Democrats like me, even those of the Yellow Dog variety, could still vote for some Republicans, without shame, even with some enthusiasm.
In Massachusetts especially, we were accustomed to Republican office holders who subordinated personal advantage to ideals of public service. People like Leverett Saltonstall, Edward Brooke, and John Volpe proved competent and worthy of the electorate’s trust.

They differed from the kind of Republican later represented on the national level by Newt Gingrich and Tom DeLay. These latter were the leaders of the effort to foist upon the public the infamous Contract with America.

The three Massachusetts Republicans mentioned above, and many others like them, believed in proven policies that had attracted bipartisan support. In addition to their personal probity, that is why they held the support of many Democrats. Nixon was of their era, but not in their league.

I especially regretted McGovern’s loss because of the war that had dragged on for years. That uncomfortable night in November 1972 meant a continuation of the Vietnam War, a conflict that had long proved disastrous for this country as well as for Southeast Asia.

Like so many other Americans, I had demonstrated in many ways against the war. The lethal bombing raids carried out by our military forces had provoked outrage among most of my friends and associates. Our hope was for a McGovern victory that would bring it all to a quick end.

This year also, I have felt the stakes to be high. My main concern has been to elect candidates who will reverse the policies of the Bush administration, policies so harmful to our nation.

Whether that will happen we will presumably know when this column appears. And, again with friends, 36 years later, I will have enjoyed a night of national election vote- counting or, if things go differently, have come to grief once more.

A group of friends, gathered together recently, reminded me that, if Barack Obama gets elected president, I will have lived to see one of the great events of American history. The people of our country will finally have proven that a person of color can ascend to the highest office in the land.

If that happens, it will complement, for me, the election of Jack Kennedy in 1960. Voting for a Catholic as president, even by a slender margin, meant that Americans had renounced a prejudice that reached far back in our history.

Even more so, perhaps, the choice of Obama will show that a majority has risen above a much more virulent prejudice with far worse effects on us all. If this happens, it can be counted upon to turn right side up the unfavorable image that the United States has in many other parts of the world.

For these reasons, I have been impatient for November 4 to arrive, and to chase away the ghosts of November 1972.

Richard Griffin