It’s still very dark outside. On the twenty-third sunrise, we’ll wake up to an election morning. Do they have twenty-three day forecasts? They have ten day forecasts, how accurate are those? [I’m thinking of the weather which has been stunningly beautiful in Madison – perfect for walking and ruminating.]

The interesting thing about William Seward (pictured in the photo above) is that he ‘flip-flopped’ (to use a popular phrase) in his political positions over time. What does that mean in terms of a governor who later became Secretary of State for Lincoln? It means that his more radical views (focusing on abolishing slavery, promoting prison reform and providing education for immigrants) appeared to calm down over the decades, so that toward the end of his career he was more interested in the protection of national unity than of individual rights (at least that is how I read his life, admittedly based on limited information; but then we always interpret the views of others based on limited information).

People change. Yet, it is interesting to note how history remembers them and it turns out it is never for the act of change but for the direction and reasons behind it. It’s true in politics, it’s true in everyday life.

(*see “forty-second street pre-election diary” post, September 22, for explanation of post title)