We Voted Today

It’s all over (except maybe in Hawaii) and it will be what it will be. Not to be too much of a downer, but when Congress’ approval ratings are lower than the approval ratings for venereal diseases…

The worst thing is that they don’t care. They’ve passed laws that let billionaires and corporations make almost unlimited contributions, they can’t be voted out of office (take a look at the number of folks re-elected today who have recent felonies), and they don’t have to care. In addition, most of them give the appearance of having an IQ lower than their shoe size. Watch a hearing on one of the Science & Technology committees some day if you don’t believe me.

Which got me to thinking, as I often do on election day — when was the last time you voted for someone you REALLY LIKED?

Personally, I can’t remember an election in decades where every spot from dogcatcher to President wasn’t a choice between “really screwed up & pathetic” and “totally, completely, 100% unacceptable.” I have vague memories from the 1970’s, when I started voting, of occasionally being enthusiastic about some issue or candidate. For the last twenty or thirty years? Not so much.

The one candidate that has stood out for me was in the 2003 California gubernatorial recall election. If you managed to somehow miss this circus, the tl;dr version is that they recalled Gray Davis, which opened up the field to just about anyone to run — 135 people qualified for the ballot (not a typo – One Hundred Thrity-Five candidates!), including folks such as actor Gary Coleman and porn star Mary Carey. Nothing demonstrates what a joke it was better than the fact that Arnold Schwarzenegger won and was the governor for eight years. (Can’t make this crap up, no one would believe it.)

In that particular free for all, both I and The Long Suffering Wife ended up voting for Larry Flynt, the publisher of “Hustler” magazine. It wasn’t a joke or a protest vote — while we weren’t nuts about him, there were several points that we thought made him a better candidate than most of the other prominent candidates, especially Schwarzenegger.

First, Flynt’s a huge proponent of the First Amendment and protecting freedom of speech. That’s a hot button item for me and I like the way Flynt’s stood up for those rights.

Second, Flynt had for years run a large and successful company, making a lot of money over the years. He may have been the only person on the ballot who had ever actually been responsible for making payroll to keep his employees fed. Like his particular industry or publication or not, the man’s been successful.

Third, and most important, there was unlikely to be any dirt to be dredged up on Flynt. Considering his lifestyle and history, there wouldn’t be any smear campaigns against him based on skeletons in his closet. Flynt’s been bringing those skeletons out and putting them on display for everyone to see for decades. The rest of the field, however… Remember how Schwarzenegger got divorced just before he left office, and why?

So back to my original point  — when was the last time you voted for someone you REALLY LIKED? If the only time you can remember is when you voted for Larry Flynt for governor, but got Arnold Schwarzenegger instead, you might just have a bit of a structural problem in your democracy.

GOP? Democrat? Independent? Doesn’t matter. They’re all a bunch of FREAKIN’ IDIOTS!

I would absolutely love to be proven wrong by any of them. I won’t be holding my breath waiting for it to hapen.