What Election Day Means, A Rant

In just a few days from now, roughly one-third of the American populace will determine who they want the single most powerful man in the world to be. Throughout the history of the twentieth century, this nation arrived upon the two-party system, which means that for all real purposes, the people have two options. The man who was nominated by the supposedly conservative party (snicker) is one Willard Romney, though the Republicans haven't nominated a somewhat legitimately conservative candidate claiming to at least maybe partially uphold the ideals of middle America every other Tuesday since the George W. Bush of the 2000 election. If the idea of electing a man who would probably call forgetting his cummerbund at a charity ball a bad day doesn't float your boat, you may vote for the incumbent, who's campaign slogan is ripped from such bastions of heartland, apple pie American values as Marx and Trotsky, that is, Barack Obama, who wishes he could use his middle name in public. I personally think he should take a cue from a certain four-year old who referred to him as Bronco Bama. Everyone and their brother would vote for a guy named Bronco.

Other than various differences over the advantages of their nomenclature, the two candidates have truly significant differences. One of them wants to raise taxes on the rich, spy on Americans on any tenuously supported suspicion of terror, support strong regulation of Wall Street, enact SOPA, and has no problem with a total redraw of the healthcare system overseen by the government.  The other one is Barack Obama.

Perhaps their personalities are the key, maybe this is the one factor that will draw voters. The Baracktopus seems to have all of the tender sweetness of a seasick crocodile, with the way he relates to the people. The guy is the type who is either in complete control or is throwing a fit. In an attempt to allay this viewpoint during the first presidential debate, he aired a performance that made him appear as if he would rather be having his teeth pulled than being forced to defend himself to a peon, erm, citizen in front of the entire nation. Meanwhile, Romney succeeded in forcing educated public discourse so central to America's direction as the question of the funding of Sesame Street. Seriously? It's as if his advisers came to him right before he went live with data from an apparently significant group of one-issue voters whose blessings lived and died on the demise of Oscar the Grouch. Speaking of the Grouch, he continued on to question the continued support of the debate moderator. I have one suggestion for the Romney staff. When pushing the message of job-creation, don't threaten sacking someone on the most popular TV event of the year. Only Donald Trump can do that. The problem with his personality isn't that it isn't a good one, but that it's sort of obscured by his palpable glee at firing people.

Maybe their running-mates are the true faces of the campaigns. In one corner, we have an accountant who missed his calling. Paul Ryan, who prefers to nickname his children after small garden vegetables, lives for numbers. In the keg party that is the federal government, he's the guy keeping the tab. His persona is plausibly the outcome of some strange experiment in which the nerdiest of nerds at his high-school switched bodies with the star wide receiver. He does multi-variable calculus problems in his head while going through his P90x routine. Unfortunately, his role in the Romney administration will probably be to assume the office of Chief Headache. One easily envisions staff meetings where the cabinet secretaries and the President are going through heated debate over how to spin Romneycare to the public, and Ryan will be arguing over the 0.5 cents per page they could save on printing costs if all government documents were printed in Comic Sans. But it's not like the man on the other side of the ring is appreciably better. In the history of being the man one heart beat away from being the Commander-in-Chief, there have certainly been a few duds. Men like Spiro Agnew and Al Gore come to mind. But there has never been a man like Joe Biden. The past four years make one assume that there must have been some kind of weird conspiracy involving Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien's writers replacing his speech manuscripts with scripts that only comedians could love. If Democrats elected Obama for his promises of change, they must be severely disappointed that for the twelfth straight year, the executive branch of the federal government has had embarrassing gaffe after embarrassing gaffe. The difference this time is that Mr. Biden has an ego of unbelievable proportions. During his cringe-worthy performance in the vice-presidential debate, he seemed to be under the impression that people aren't interested in logical, passionate debate. His coaches must have informed him that the best way to deal with well-constructed attacks on the government's record was to laugh them off. "When in doubt, insult and contradict" has never been a winning debate strategy. It is disgusting and anti-American for a governmental official to possess the idea that he is somehow above the rest of us, and that he has an elevated sense of reality and what's good for us. In fact, it is decidedly progressive in nature, but that's for another post.

Ok, so if we take a step back, and look at the campaigns from a different perspective, we should be able to determine who is the better candidate, right? Let's examine their supporters rationale for voting for them. The Republicans have had a rather raw deal in the past several elections, so it may be possible to cut them some slack, but not much considering their logic. A normal, logical person would look at the tally of votes as a pair of scales. A vote put in one candidate's column also counts as a vote against the other. The voted for candidate's side will go down as much as the decided against candidate's side will go up. This is simply the way it works. Not according to Republicans, not at all. My favorite line, "If you don't vote, you're voting for Obama!" What!?! How does that make sense. If each person were given a weight to put on the scale, and one chose to throw his away, whose column is boosted? Whose column is harmed? Um, neither. How is voting not for socialism and not for centrism a vote for socialism? I feel like bashing a newborn kitten against the wall whenever someone makes that argument. But in case you thought only the party of the so-called conservatives was employing faulty logic in GOTV campaigns, wait until the Democrats present their case. We have the master of logical constructions, the veritable brains behind the Left, Joe Biden telling an African-American crowd in the South that Republicans intend to put them back in chains. Other than race-mongering, Biden would do well to remember that it was HIS party, not the Republicans who were standing with John C. Calhoun against Frederick Douglass on the slavery argument. Or they resort to blatant scare tactics. So Obama's followers aren't using logic either.

In conclusion, we have two choices for the next President. They have each spun, rhetorically speaking, vastly different visions for the future of America. But when push comes to shove, are either of them truly desirable? I feel like Bonnie Tyler, wondering where all the good men have gone. Let's hope for a Ted Cruz run in 2016.