I go vote every chance I get. If I lived in Chicago or Miami, I’d follow their collective motto: Vote early, vote often. I’m like those poor confused fellows in England who want to vote for their preferred candidate for Mayor of London even though I, technically, live in Manchester.
But the older I get, the more I realize: There just ain’t enough tin foil to go around for the people who really get wound up in this politic slop.
Both parties are blowing it. Fringe parties are just that – the fringe. I’ve voted for plenty of people in fringe parties, always regarding my vote as a protest, a throwaway. I knew there was no chance in hell that H. Ross Perot – Part Mongoose, Part Ferengi – would win. I knew when I voted for Ralph “Charisma Vacuum” Nader that I might as well vote for Darth Vader as Vader might have a better chance of winning.
Ever since my first presidential election vote in 1992 (I voted then, absentee, for Perot while sitting in an apartment in Toulouse, France, wondering why the Bonneville Republican Party had been allowed to include their propaganda in the same envelope with my absentee ballot) I’ve been voting for the lesser of two or three evils. That’s why Nader got my vote in 2004. And let me tell you, I’m just bubbling with anticipation to see who the major parties will put up in 2012.
The Democrats, of course, will go with the incumbency of Barack Obama, unless, of course, his holding action of appointing Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State doesn’t hold. (And if It doesn’t, I hope to see something like this at the DNC convention, with Hillary taking the role of Sandy Cheeks):
The real wild cards will come from the Republicans, I’m sure. And depending on whom they pick, they could turn President Obama into your typical Democratic one-termer.
But, based on whom the Republicans picked last time, this is what I anticipate coming from them in 2012:
I’ll say it right now: If the Republcians pick Sarah Palin in 2012, I’ll vote for the other guy, be it Barack Obama or Berzelius “Buzz” Windrip.
But they’ll have to be careful. As much as I like Mitt Romney, he won’t win an election for the Republicans, though he might fare better against Obama than Palin. No, the Republicans are going to have to find somebody else. Who that somebody else might be at this point, I do not know. Not Bobby Jindal. Somebody who’s experienced in things political and foreign (aside from looking out of frost-encrusted windows, metaphorically, into foreign countries) but who has also been off the radar for a while. Because if you ask me, this next election is for the Republicans to win or lose, depending on whom they select as the contender. Back the wrong horse and they’ll see Obama back in office for another four years. I’m not saying that would be bad, but I am kind of implying that given toe kowtowing to the status quo, putting Obama back in office will have the same kind of magical effect as putting him in office in the first place.
Because, frankly, this is the kind of things we expect from our politicians:
Though we say we want this (meaning the truth):
Of course, the same can be said for the voters on either side of the political spectrum. Collectively, we've got the brain of a diseased fig. We want what we want and don't really care if getting what we want tramples onwhat others want. Dissatisfied with our politicians, we join fringe movements (yes, there are fringes on the left as well as the right; the right just gets air time with the Tea Party crazies; just listen to those flipping out abou the Mother Teresa stamp and not really realizing that The Daily Show is MAKING FUN OF THEM in their little Da Vinci code segment to get a little flavor of the Left's bizarre irrationality.
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