I voted for a Republican. Once.

Sen. Edward Brooke (R-Mass.)

Newt Gingrich's latest campaign ad ends with a scathing epithet: "MITT ROMNEY, MASSACHUSETTS MODERATE," spoken in a tone of voice you would ordinarily reserve for saying "TRAITOROUS SCUMBAG."

The delicious ironies here are too  abundant to mention, so I won't, but it did remind me of the first, last and only time I voted for a Republican candidate, another Massachusetts moderate, Edward Brooke. Brooke was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1966, the first African-American to serve there since the 19th century.

The term "moderate" is always relative to the extremes. On racial matters Brooke proclaimed himself to stand between Stokely Carmichael at one end of the spectrum and George Wallace at the other. I voted for him the only chance I got, in 1978 when he ran for a third term, losing to Paul Tsongas.

The only other time a moderate Republican earned my approval, it was 1966. We lived in Maryland  but I was too young to vote. A politician then called Ted Agnew ran for governor and had the good luck to be running against George Mahoney, a segregationist who did not bother to conceal his racist views. Mahoney's slogan was "A man's home is his castle -- Protect it!" This did not sit well with the black population of Baltimore or the liberal whites in Montgomery County, so Agnew won. His later career showed that he was no moderate. In 1972, I hitched a ride from college in Connecticut back to Maryland for the express purpose of voting against the Nixon-Agnew ticket, and in 1973 had the pleasure of hearing he had resigned after bribery charges.

Weinstock Predicts: The Republican hatred of moderation will reelect Obama in 2012.

Weinstock Wonders: Ed Brooke is still alive. I wonder who he'll vote for.

A modest proposal for 2012

My tribal ancestors launched several enduring ideas, such as monotheism and bagels, but maybe the best of all is Heshvan. Heshvan is a month on the Jewish calendar. It occurs late in the fall, and it is famous. What is it famous for? One thing: Heshvan contains no holidays.

Imagine it, one entire month with not a single holiday. No feast days to cook for, no fasts to pre-load for. No presents to wrap, no gifts to send, no parades to watch, no seasonal décor to hang. No mandatory family gatherings, no TV specials, no silly hats on waitresses and no themed sales on car lots. In Heshvan, everything you dislike about holidays is completely absent for one entire lunar month.

Couldn’t you use a little Heshvan right now? Wouldn’t you kill for one solid month of predictable five-day work weeks, punctuated by perfectly long-enough two-day weekends? Don’t you hunger for a get-it-done month, when the post office and the bank are open every single Monday, and the kids are in school every single Friday? (And what do teachers do on “in-service” days anyway?)

I’m past ready. Every year, the holidays come at us faster and closer together. Not half an hour separates one holiday from the next. Immediately after store Christmas displays are taken down, valentine cards and candy appear for a six-week run. By February 15, valentines are so yesterday and six weeks of Easter shopping begins.

It isn’t only store decorators who can’t keep their holidays apart. At least they clear away the Christmas course before setting out the valentines. But the rest of us don’t. Half the buildings in town (including my own, fully bicultural, home) sport their front-door Christmas wreaths well into late March.

Don’t get me wrong. I am neither Grinch nor Scrooge. Holidays can be done right. My idea of the perfect holiday would be a single day, strictly limited to 24 hours, consecrated to doing nothing and going nowhere. It would be like an Iraqi election day; nobody could drive their car on pain of being shot. It would be a misdemeanor to exchange anything more tangible than verbal greetings and a felony to decorate so much as a cake, much less the front lawn. And when would the perfect holiday be? Pick any day you want, as long as it’s not in Heshvan.

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In slightly different form, this piece originally appeared

in the Addison Independent.

APOSTROPHE POLICE PLEASE NOTE: 

In Massachusetts, it is officially Patriots' Day. 

In Maine, it is Patriot's Day.