I've been working on this piece since the election. I'm a little slow, I know, but life can get in the way of writing much too often. So if you're not totally sick of politics, give this a read. Or even if you are sick of politics, it might be good for a laugh and I would love to know your thoughts about how we can make things better. Feel free to share the piece if it strikes a chord with you.
THE
CRRR-AZIEST ONE OF ALL
Mirror,
mirror
on
the wall,
who's
the crrr-aziest one of all?
The
President of the United States!
November
6, 2012: Election Day. Seems like a good time to talk politics.
In
case you've forgotten – amazing but true that we often forget about
the also-rans before the winning candidate is even sworn in – this
has been a contentious battle between good and evil. I mean, Mitt
Romney and Barack Obama. But it certainly played out as good versus
evil in the media, social as well as news: Romney as the
31-flavors-of-conservative, quasi-Christian (meaning Mormon, which
true Christians say smacks of
cult because Mormons have their own “bible”), corporate kiss-ass
CEO white knight sent from Massachusetts to save the economy (and
presumably the country) from the radical Islamic, cocaine-pushing,
terrorist-lover, quasi-foreigner-turned-President Obama. And these
were some of the nicer descriptions of the candidates. I'm not
kidding. I kept waiting for a photo of Romney walking on water to lay
hands on a sick baby (because the economy makes for a lousy photo op)
or leaked documents proving Obama bombed Pearl Harbor (he is from
Hawaii, you know).
Why either of these men would want
to subject themselves to this kind of scandalous abuse is beyond me.
Then, after months of torturous traveling, microscopic scrutiny, and
televised debates worthy of Friday Night Smackdown status, the winner
actually has to try to corral the folks that said such awful things
about them in the first place and lead this monstrous mess of a
nation. No way is being President worth it for a measly $400,000 a
year, even with buff Secret Service agents forever at your beck and
call (although that may be more of a perk when we have our first
female President!).
These
guys must be crrr-azy to want the job. That goes for anyone running
for any kind of public office. Politics has become an ugly business,
where anything you have ever done or said or drank or smoked or voted
for becomes fodder for the feeding frenzy of newspapers starved for
paper-selling scandals, “news” channels and websites dedicated to
keeping the public informed (and inflamed) 24/7, and your opponent to
put in ads against you. Add to that all the stupid stuff the
candidates do to sully themselves: torrid affairs; unpaid taxes and
student loans; unscrupulous business deals; illegal alien employees;
and ignorant comments like abortion should never be legal because a
woman's body is able to shut down pregnancy in the case of a
legitimate rape. If all the smear campaigns and “breaking news”
crawls are true, these people should not only NOT be candidates for
office, most of them should be behind bars. I am a pretty squeaky
clean gal – except for my predilection toward driving too fast and
drinking too much red wine (but not at the same time!), plus my
un-Christianlike living in sin with DMan – but I wouldn't subject
myself to the pains of politics to run for Dog Catcher, even if the
job paid $400,000 and came with a free dog. And I love dogs.
So why do politicians do it?
That is the question that
should be asked by the media and addressed in political ads because
the answer – if it's truthful, which is hard to guarantee when
politicians are involved – would tell everything about the type of
elected official they will become. Some run for power. You can see it
in their eyes, that Grinch-like gleam from dreams of domination and
manipulation of their minions. You can hear it in their speeches,
subtle hints that “we the people” really means “me the people,
in order to form pork barrel projects and do anything else I can get
away with.” That's scary, and sad. But even more sad are those
politicians running because they actually believe they can change
things and make a difference. As soon as they take office and have to
work within our political system of back-scratching deals, PAC power,
lobbyist-leaning legislation, and
CYA-today-because-you'll-need-to-get-reelected-tomorrow, their
demeanor changes even if nothing else does. They morph from Saint
Bernards, willing to charge into an avalanche to save someone, into a
tied-up mutt that lies down defeated in the dirt rather than run
around in circles on a chain.
Sure, I'm exaggerating. Slightly.
But there's enough truth there to make you cringe a little at the
state our union is in, right?
So what can we do to fix it?
Mama says, “Give 'em six years in
office. That's all. No reelection, no lifetime of sucking off the
public teat in political office. If they can't do what they need to
do in six years, then they didn't deserve to be in there in the first
place.”
Makes sense to me. Taking the whole
issue of reelection out of the picture would allow our elected
officials to actually focus on what they got elected to do and not
spend half their term trying to get reelected. Elections would cost
less because there would be less of them. Plus there would be a
steady stream of fresh ideas and new blood coming into office. Then
maybe some things would change. Of course, it would take
changing laws to make the change in terms happen, not likely when the
ones in charge are eager to keep their jobs.
My life buddy DMan wants to create
a website called NoMud.com to counteract political ads. Candidates
could only post what they believe in and are going to do in
office – no smears, no slander against their opponent. The site
would also allow politicos to provide a defense against misleading
ads. Let's say incumbent Senator SoandSo voted against a bill that
would save all the cats in animal shelters from being euthanized.
Sounds bad, huh? And candidate Wannabea-Senator blankets the airwaves
with commercials depicting cats marching into gas chambers under
orders from Senator SoandSo. NoMud.com would give the Senator a
neutral forum to set the record straight that his no-vote was because
the bill also contained provisions that to save the cats, all the
dogs in shelters had to be croaked. No one with any heart at all
would vote for that bill. I hope.
NoMud.com would be the “Dragnet”
of politics – just the facts, Ma'am. DMan's idea gets my vote. But
I would take it even further. I mean, if we are going to shake things
up, let's really make a fizz: No more political ads. Period. With
newspapers, internet, and multiple channels of constant news, voters
can find out all they need to know and more about the candidates and
issues without billions (I'm guessing) spent on paid advertisements.
Most people ignore the ads anyway.
Particularly in this election, one
week before election day the entire northeast of the country was
slammed by Hurricane-turned-Super-Storm Sandy, which caused billions
in damage. People were homeless, cold, and in the dark without basic
necessities. Over 100 were dead. Communities were devastated by
floods, infrastructure swept away, and sand dunes where streets
should be. And the rest of the country was flipping channels to avoid
watching the political ads that could have paid for a hell of a lot
of food, supplies, and clean up. That is a travesty.
Now if a couple of non-political
nobodies like us can come up with such great ideas, just think about
what the whole country could do. So I have one more suggestion:
instead of asking on our income tax form if we want to donate $1 to
the Presidential campaign to be blown on costly but worthless ads,
they should ask if we want to contribute ideas on how to make the
campaigns and the country better. I bet we crafty, concerned citizens
could come up with some doozies worth much more than a buck. But keep
the suggestions clean, please. Let's lead the way to putting civility
back in politics.
-----
November 7, 2012: The morning
after. I am incredulous to wake up and hear President Obama has been
reelected. When I called it a night on all the election speculation,
the networks were reporting people were still in line to vote in
Florida, one of the key “battleground” states, and would be for
several more hours. The Mountain and Pacific time zone states
wouldn't close the polls for several hours as well. I figured this
would turn into a 2000 Bush/Gore, count/recount, chad-hanging,
days-long fight to the Florida-finish all over again and I went to
bed. So how can it be that the winner of the Presidential race could
be “called” as early as 11:18pm Eastern Standard Time by the
Associated Press when Ohio went for Obama? Is Ohio the crystal
ball of the entire country? What about those poor patriots still
standing in line at the polls – because supposedly EVERY VOTE
COUNTS – when the results were announced?! Something is very wrong
with this picture.
In the spirit of full disclosure
(not the usual spirit in politics, I know, but I'm hoping to start a
trend here), I voted predominantly for democrats and yes, Obama was
one of them. But despite there being a pretty clear victory with
Obama's 332 electoral votes to Romney's 206, I'm not feeling any
euphoric hallelujah moment from my candidate winning. This country is
still a mess. People still need jobs. The economy is still iffy at
best. Our soldiers are still dying in Afghanistan. The national debt
is still growing by several billions every day. And if the world
doesn't end on 12/21/12 when the Mayan calendar runs out, then our
country is projected to fall off a “fiscal cliff” come January
2013 that sounds like the end of the world.
None of these things are going to
change just because an election is over. The newly elected who slung
so much mud at the opposing side are now going to have to work with
that opposing side in order to honor their campaign promises and fix
this country. So lest we citizens become the crrr-aziest ones of all
in believing our leaders will accomplish anything at all without a
prodigious amount of (cattle) prodding, it is up to us, whether we
voted for them or not, to make our voices heard about how we want
this country ran. Write letters. Send emails and tweets. Make phone
calls. Share their voting record on Facebook and post your like or
dislike. Carve a huge message in the sand if you are still stuck
without power in Super-Storm Sandyland. Our vote is only the
beginning of our responsibility to our country because we've got
crrr-azy people running our government.
Mirror, mirror
on the wall,
who's the crrr-aziest one of all?
We'll find out again in four more
years.
