Suck It Up - America!

<
Quit yer whinin'. The political process is not irretrievably broken. It's just bent a little. How bent it is is inversely proportional to how well your guy is doing. And right now I feel pretty good about the process. It ain't over yet and I'm sure there is a lot of swift boatin' coming our way but gosh darnit, I'm going to enjoy this fleeting moment of bliss. It's been 8 looonnng years in coming. I don't know if Pennsylvania is the next big state to be abandoned by the McCain campaign but I've noticed a curious lack of 527 style attack ads coming our way. Maybe T. Boone Shitkickins has decided to invest his money in trying to save our country instead of destroying it. We are the land of the second chance.

Look at the bright side. This time we don't have to choose from two rich guys from Yale. We got an aged war hero and his babelicious running mate and a black senator with a Arabic name and his running mate, the man who should be President. How cool is that? And how bad has the current administration fucked things up to make this even a possibility? The potential for measured political discourse is always there. We saw it in the two interviews on September 11. Both men gave thoughtful, insightful answers and I came away with the feeling that either one was capable of holding the office. Of course, the feeling went away when McCain realized he could really lose this thing and begain pulling out all the stops in a hysterical attempt to turn the tide. Palin? Sweet Jesus in the morning! What was he thinking? Of course, I also came away from the last vice presidential debate impressed by Cheney's calm demeanor, so I am no judge of character. I thought even if Bush wins maybe this guy can keep him from doing something really stupid. Little did I realize he would become the Dark Lord of the New American Imperium and preside over the wholesale destruction of the american economic system. Oops.


Everybody complains about the quality of the candidates but I believe those that survive vetting by an aggressive press are for the most part brighter and more able than their predecessors. Even our thieving politicians are a little smarter. Boss Tweed, Jimmy Walker and Huey Long wouldn't have lasted 10 minutes in the public arena nowadays. Secret ballots didn't come into use until the end of the 19th century, blacks were effectively disenfranchised by Jim Crow laws, women didn't get the right to vote until 1920, you could get beat up by club wielding poll watchers for coming out of the booth with the wrong colored ballot stub. And things aren't better? Where was this mythical land of sturdy Cinncinatuses (Cinncinati?) casting well reasoned votes free from rancorous party politics?

Results of the Sarah Palin Fit to President Poll are just in:

14% felt that she did not have sufficient grasp of the issues
14% thought that having a nice rack and being demon free was not sufficient qualifications
42% thought it was a joke
28% prayed it wasn't happening
and 2% must have disappeared somewhere into the interwebs.

I took a lot of flack for not including a positive response in case some of you are actually brain damaged enough to think that she is presidential material. So I be running a new poll just for you.

More Cornpone, Please

Doggone it, what can I say? Maybe I watched a different debate. Grumpy old politico Pat Buchanan and pretend everyman Joe Scarborough are convinced that Palin nailed it. Biden was "boring" (i.e too many factual presentations of actual policy proposals) and Palin spoke directly to the people. She sounded to me like Ned Flanders channeling Ronald Reagan. Hot diddily doo. Every wink into the camera reminded me of an Amway presentation selling guaranteed pure products like "freedom", "jobs" and "lower taxes". And just like Amway, it's a sales technique to get us to pay too much for a product we don't need. Trickle down economics is a pyramid scheme and a McCain election will guarantee most of us staying at the bottom. Sarah Palin's job is to sell these Republican products and get us to vote against our own self interest. I found the whole folksy, wink-wink Mr. Deeds bullshit belittling and condescending. We are not that stupid and we have had enough of that shit with Bush and I'm hoping we don't fall for it again.

I am a working class guy and I can tell you guys like Buchanan and Scarborough don't get it. Their contact with working people is limited to picking up the dry cleaning or dropping their car off for an oil change. If you are a waitress or a nurse or a mechanic or a construction worker or a factory worker you know what I mean. I used to deliver redi-mix to homeowners, usually lawyers or doctors or accountants, and this was their big once in 10 a year moment to do some really heidi-ho blue collar manual labor. I'd hear how great this kind of work is. No, it isn't. Try it for 15 years. Otherwise you don't have a clue. And quit feeding us bullshit, we're full.