The People Get What They Deserve July 23
I have an axiom I often apply to companies, but that seems to fit the presidential race pretty well too - “You only have to suck marginally less than your competitor to be a success.” At this point Obama seems to be carrying the smaller bucket of suckage, but things change and next week Walnuts might upend the bucket over JFK Jr’s head.
Hey, it could happen!
Neither man is living up to his own self-aggrandizement. The Maverick is nothing more than a traditional politician minus the good sense not to invite The Big Dick to “take things outside”. With the exception of the War of Error.TM, he’s never seen a position he wouldn’t throw over to get a vote - including those he whole-heartedly supported last year, last month, and last week. Judging from his temper tantrums he’s about as cuddly as a rabid polar bear and he chases lobbyists like he’s a dog chasing a butcher with a pork chop in his pants. You also have to wonder about a guy’s decision-making skills when he calls his wife the c-word and a trollop - in the same breath.
Obama’s not so hot as the candidate of change either. As he sits on the fence in the service of centerism, he may become a victim of his own reversals and “clarifications”. He’s apparently never said much that wasn’t taken out of context and has a Teflon coat of anti-racism to deflect most of the other mud that squishes through. His chief connections to his JFK persona consist of his ability to talk purty, stand with his head held condescendingly high, and wear a suit like he was born in it.
A Job No Sane Person Would Want
It’s at this point in each election when I think to myself, “There are more than 300 million people in this country and these two schmoes are the best candidates we could come up with?” Then, I think rationally. I see that no sane person would want a job where every move is a spectacular failure to some segment of the population. I realize that most candidates came to Washington jazzed about doing good and righting the ship of state. That’s before being ground down by a political sub-culture with the strict morals and mores of the Mafia.
Washington changes people, people don’t change Washington.
There’s always tons of sage advice about the value of negative campaigning or carefully nuancing your speeches to appeal to everyone without promising anything of substance to anyone. Hollywood-style makeup experts primp the candidates to within an inch of their life and professional fib tellers rehearse them through their speeches and canned responses so long they never vary more than a word or two from the script. Ad libs are verboten, just ask Walnuts about misreading Czech Republic as Czechoslovakia despite the script being quite clear about the difference.
Looking for Presidentialness
It seems no one advises candidates to just be themselves - or at least the self they were before wading in the muck of the Potomac. Besides, there is plenty of evidence that such an approach would be the kiss of death to voters. As a group, we’re astonishingly ill-informed. We expect every candidate to have a detailed policy for every pet issue, but give them wide birth on important subjects because we’re too stupid to understand them. We reward candidates for their ability to label their opponents with the most creative epithets and don’t take the time to understand an issue any better than McCain understands the difference between eastern European republics. And when we inevitably elect a bonehead, we blame it all on the media, fingering the same outlet as too liberal or too conservative in the same article.
We like to think we require a certain standard of presidentialness in our candidates, but we’re uninterested in learning enough to make that judgement. In fact, we’re not even interested in figuring out what presidentialness is. Our insular stupidity is the real threat to the nation, not cardboard terrorists, congenitally lying frat boys, global warming, or face-shooting chickenhawks with Brillo pads stuck up their asses. If Obama only needs to suck marginally less than McCain to win, voters just have to suck period. There’s another old axiom I frequently use, “The best man doesn’t always win, but the people get what they deserve.”
Yup, that sums it up for me.
The Poobah is a featured contributor at Bring It On!
This work, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.
Flimsy Sanity Jul 24
If everyone voted for the best man, my man Ralph would be President…but America is the land of football game gamblers where the goal is to pick the winner.
Flimsy Sanity’s last blog post..FDIC Insurance
Dusty Jul 24
Well Poobie..perhaps you can now see why I ain’t voting for either of them for Preznit.
Its once again going to be a write-in vote for my cat; Scooter Lee!
Dusty’s last blog post..Malkin as usual, misses the point.
distributorcap Jul 26
because the media — where most people STILL get their misinformation is not interested in information — they are ONLY interested in the horse race
and as far as they are concerned it could be stalin vs pol pot and they would be reciting every poll, ever talking point, every mistake — but never ever once mentioning policy or issue
it is not about change — it is totally about selling fords and donuts
distributorcap’s last blog post..Estonia