Saturday, January 26, 2008

Political Cynical

Tis the season....to vote for Presidential candidates.

I used to love politics. Literally, every two years I would buy the Bible of Politics, Michael Barone's The Almanac of American Politics and devour it, memorizing such minutia as who represented Kansas second congressional district, what Jesse Helm's "ACU" rating was in 1992, and what the racial breakdown was of west-central Oregon.

I was Rain Man that way (I also have a photographic memory when it comes to 80's music - ask me who sang "Poison Arrow", and boo-ya, I tell you right back, in the blink of an eye, ABC, on the album The Lexicon of Love, produced by Trevor Horn, Mercury Records, 1982) .

Then, sometime soon after the 1994 congressional elections I lost interest...

The reason why is that I used to actually, naively believe that politics meant something, that if I worked and prayed for Candidate X to win the Pennsylvanian US Senate election that it would make a real difference in the affairs of man. It soon dawned on me that the same problems we had back then are the same problems we have right now, that the major parties of America "play around the edges", but are largely identical: Republi-crats and Demo-cans.

I actually think that 90% of politicians are self-obsessed, emotionally stunted, basket cases, desperate for validation.

Why else would admittedly bright, capable people put themselves through the agonizing ringer of "running for office"? I mean do you really think that there's no place on God's great green Earth that Hillary Clinton would rather be than at Chuck's Pancake Palace out on Highway 19, at 6AM in the morning, "pressing the flesh" with the local slack-jawed yokels?


Or that on any given Saturday morning John Kerry rolls out of bed, dons all purpose "hunting" clothes, grabs his grandfather's old carbine rifle, then hot-foots it out to the woods (followed by cameras and reporters, of courses) to blast geese out of the sky?



Hey, you got to prove your NRA bonifides!

It's all a farce.

And the debates..... they aren't exactly Lincoln-Douglas quality, are they? As soon as a particular word gains ascendancy, the candidates glob onto to it like piranhas on a beef patty.

Candidate 1: For 35 years I have fought for change. Change is all I care about, 24/7, night and day. Change is what this candidacy is about!

Candidate 2: Change, you wouldn't know change if you sneezed change out into a handkerchief. I am the real candidate for change! I weep for change. Every job I have ever had...paper-boy...cashier at the Stop-N-Go, I made change! I was good at making change too. I never dropped a nickel, not once!

Candidate 1: Change? Did I hear you just say change? Ha! I have been nothing but change every single day during my 37 years in the US Senate. I have actually distilled change into a fine powder in which I carry on my persons to sprinkle in my iced tea for added flavor I am so serious about change.

Candidate 3: I am John Edwards.

4 comments:

Oso Famoso said...

Mikey Likes It!

If this election comes down to the likes of Hillary and McCain/Guiliani/or other clone...I am honestly going to write-in "Ralph Wiggum" with a straight face...

http://www.digthewig08.com/

Megan@SortaCrunchy said...

Hi, Walker! I am one of Missy's we-haven't-met-yet-but-by-golly-we're-gonna friends. I live south of The City Aggies Shall Not Drive Through (honest to goodness, by Aggie grandparents would drive all the way around it, lest they should be contaminated within the city limits of all that is wrong in the world).

Good thoughts on a frustrating topic. Look forward to hearing more from ya!

Anonymous said...

"I am John Edwards".....OUCH.
Too true.
Fun Blog so far.
Deirdre

I C said...

Mad props on the blog. Someone should Digg this or whatever you kids do nowadays.