Election day dawns in my large delegate-rich state. Hallelujah!
I for one will be dancing in the street as I trek to my local voting poll. Why? Because, starting today, my phone stops ringing every fifteen minutes.
How fetching this onslaught of solicitude from robo-calling candidates beseeching my vote. Too bad your expressions of concern about my well-being are only as deep as the cheap cardstock used for oversized postcards stuffed in my mailbox.
Of course you know the concerns of those of us in steerage. Isn’t that what data mining is for?
I have a real stupid and naïve suggestion. How about spending a fraction of that energy to actually do something constructive for your constituents once you actually get into office.
So, Mr. Republican blowhard, I thought yours was the party of limited government and non-intervention. Or does that only apply for your deep-pocketed donors?
I’m sick and tired of cleaning up after the mess you are making of this great country. Excuse me, but I work for my living and I pay my taxes. Like the meme, I can’t afford to support myself and you and your over-fed cronies.
What is your fetish with my private parts, anyway? Seems those who show the greatest dedication to keeping women barefoot and pregnant have the most dirty laundry. Let me suggest a quick, easy cure. It can be done in any veterinarian’s office on an outpatient basis.
Ted Cruz
Yes, Mr. Cruz, your daughter’s cringing reaction to your embrace tells me everything I need to know. Creepy! Then trying your damndest to shut down the government of the United States. What a fine patriot you are! Oh, I forgot, you’re from Canada. I mean no disrespect for the vast majority of Canadians who are wonderful people and can teach us a thing or two.
Right now, candidates, I am sick to death of every one of you.
The Donald
Baby-boy Donald, grow up. Yes, you did us a great favor by livening up the Republican debates and single-handedly blunting the Republican establishment.
But spare us the Fourth Reich bullshit. Grow up and show a little responsibility about the dangerous emotion you’re dredging up. Don’t insult my intelligence by pretending to care about Mexican illegals overrunning our borders when you hire them to work under substandard conditions like the worst of your colleagues.
No worries, we know your only enduring interest is the size of your over-inflated ego, fatter than your fingers are long.
John Kasich
And, you, Mr. Kasich: That you come across reasonable by comparison shows how low the bar can go for Republican candidates. At least you had the balls to implement the Medicaid expansion in your state, but can you pul-lease get off your kick about killing the ACA. You and your cohorts sound like a bunch of braying donkeys. Yes, the analogy is intentional.
Would you have us go back to the bad old days when insurance companies cancelled people’s policies because they didn’t disclose a hangnail from ten years ago?
And you had to get on that de-funding Planned Parenthood bandwagon. I know, I know, we don’t want to treat poor women too well by making it possible for them to get regular mammograms. Here’s a suggestion. Get over it. Go get a uterus.
And now for the Democrats:
Hillary Clinton
Hillary, I so totally get it when you talk about being held to a different standard because of your gender. You are our female Jackie Robinson. How sad so many are still threatened by a competent, strong woman.
You’re the one candidate who really does get women’s issues as proven by your long track record. Your competence and experience blows away the rest of the pack.
But, you routinely receive six-figure speaking fees; your daughter graduates a fancy school and gets a six-figure job off the bat. Six figures? For most kids coming out of college today, the nearest they’ll get to six-figures is their student debt total.
Your family and the Bushes come as close as America has to a royal family, and sorry, I don’t do royalty. (Thank God Jebbie flamed out(!). So I really do want to know about your big-money connections. There’s little point criticizing Republicans; it’s been well demonstrated they are beyond corrupt and beyond contempt.
You promise a better future. But who will you fight for once you get into office: the folks in steerage or big-monied interests? We, in steerage, are not in a real trusting mood; we’ve been screwed and scammed too much.
Bernie
And Bernie, your turn. I so love, love, LOVE your vision! You say what I’ve been long thinking. You say what truly needs to be said. Such a breath of fresh air. Exactly what we need!
For the most part, you’ve conducted yourself like a gentleman. I loved you when, on the debate stage being broadcast to millions, you snapped “enough of the emails!”
So why did you have to go into the trenches in the past few weeks? And while you’re at it, do call off the Bernie bro posse. It’s not that Hillary’s track record doesn’t provides plenty of fodder. But we can do without petulant posturing from insecure overgrown male adolescents with unresolved mother-issues.
I’m totally with you: the system is corrupt. The power and wealth inequality is unsustainable. Yes, we need an institutional overhaul from top to bottom. Yes, we the people in steerage are beyond pissed.
But do you need to win the presidency or to build a movement?
As president, how do you get your programs through Congress and counter special interest backlash? You need at minimum, a super-majority in congress and a big media push. You also need strong backing from a grassroots uprising. That takes hard work, organization and strategy.
Otherwise you end up like our governor: he had wonderful, progressive ideas on how to spread the tax burden and properly fund essential services. Then he ran into the buzz-saw of our anti-deluvian state legislature and ended up with an empty budget nine months late.