Nope, Just Voters At The Ballot Box
Fernley, NV (Jan. 17, 2008. TBC) Every presidential candidate running this year has a huge turd floating in their respective punch bowl. Their parades are being rained on, all sorts of dogs are having all kinds of days, what went around is coming back around, lead balloons are falling from above in profusion, skinned cats roam the alleys at night, cakes are being made and eaten by their bakers and, as Mike Jaggar once said, “You can’t always get what you want”. Yes indeed. This primary season is the political equivalent of a no-holds-barred, tag team, steel cage, anything goes, no referees, drunken free-for-all in some seedy roadhouse. And isn’t it just great?
At this point in time it seems those candidates who have posted a victory in a straw poll, caucus or primary actually outnumber those who haven’t. What this says about all of them, all of us, our current president, the state of our union, society, culture and economy will fill libraries in years to come. For now, it simply is what it is: a time of reckoning is upon us and, by golly, the pollsters, pundits and talking heads are apoplectic. The variables and influences, factors, facts, fears and frustrations that have driven us to this point are far too numerous and complex to begin to detail. They too shall be well documented in the years ahead.
All sorts of new age jargon was invented just for this time in our political life: we are seeing a “New Paradigm” emerge, we are at a “Tipping Point”, the “Dynamism” is unparalleled, “Networks”, “Synergies”, “Cyberspaces” and “Viral Videos” have supplanted what once was familiar turf. We have had and seen enough from our government and elected officials over the last 40 years, that now, all bets are off, it is a Brave New World and just about 292 days until someone is elected to be our next president. Have mercy! Experience versus Change? What is a country to do?
The only familiar items in this vastly unfamiliar landscape are politicians and bullshit; neither have really evolved or been altered in any substantial way. They are what they are, always have been and always will be. They have had to adjust and adapt in the case of the former, and learn to travel farther and faster in the case of the latter. These two items have earned their vaunted listing on that most preciously short list. Politicians and bullshit join cockroaches and Twinkies as the only things on earth that can survive a thermonuclear conflagration. Sadly, the mighty cockroach and the deliciously synthetic Twinkie are both diminished in stature by association with their two new fellow listees.
Syrupy preacher, aw-shucks Mike Huckabee and Obama, the Inspirational Orator capture the bogus Iowa Caucuses. New Hampshire allows the tears of Hillary and the bloviating of McCain to each claim first place. Michigan is so depressed they believed Mitt Romney while “Undecided” finished ahead of Hillary. Now Nevada and South Carolina and all the various components of each make them uniquely important as this freewheeling brawl continues. All sorts of things are being added to this sloppy, dirty, festering tumbleweed like JFK ,Martin Luther King, Civil Rights, Lyndon Johnson, Viet Nam POW’s, high school drug usage, Muslims, Mormons, morons, lobbyists, lawyers, lay-offs, then, now and, bizarrely, Ross Perot has been sighted somewhere between nowhere, Texas and Hilton Head.
One of these people may actually be our next president? Keep thinking about that. Think about it long enough and you can imagine a barren, scorched earth with bullshitting politicians scarfing down Twinkies while cockroaches scurry about.
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