Church of Twain: Of fortune tellers and political imagemakers

With Nevada’s congressional delegation back in the state and making public appearances, we’re starting to hear from citizens as they announce their intentions to challenge the incumbents.

Most of these announcements are made by painfully sincere folks who, after listening to a few friends, their church group, or that most dangerous of whisperers, the professional giver of political advice, are tingly all over at the prospect of running for public office and serving the people.

All well and good. Wars need cannon fodder, and political campaigns can be very much like war. But I can’t imagine what some of these upstarts, none of whom have ever won a campaign outside the halls of their high school, are thinking as they proclaim via e-mail that they are just the person to unseat an incumbent outfitted with razor-sharp teeth and millions in the bank.

Realizing no one has yet taken my advice on anything, these words from Saint Mark Twain of Missouri will surely fall on deaf ears. In his essay titled “Christian Science,” Twain reflected on the power of fortunetellers and others to influence their fellow man.

He wrote:

“The mind exercises a powerful influence over the body. From the beginning of time, the sorcerer, the interpreter of dreams, the fortune-teller, the charlatan, the quack, the wild medicineman, the educated physician, the mesmerist, and the hypnotist have made use of the client's imagination to help them in their work. They have all recognized the potency and availability of that force.”

Twain might have included political advance men on that list.