First Thoughts on the Election

It's finally happened. I care about politics.

Well, sorta.

I'm still not going to be volunteering for anyone's campaign, I'm not going to give any money, I'm not going to throw myself behind anyone as the savior of all humanity, but I am going to vote, which is a big step forward for me.

See, for years I was terribly disillusioned with the whole process. At 29 years old it takes a particular kind of temperament to be disillusioned with anything, but clearly I am of that temperament.

My rationale for not voting was based around the belief that it's nearly impossible to know who you are voting for. As low an opinion as I have of self-proclaimed "red staters", I have to believe that if they knew in 1999 what they know now about the policies of George W. Bush, not even they would have elected him to lead. (I'm a little more confused about 2003, but that's a topic for another post)

The problem is, there's no way of knowing what kind of a President a Candidate will make during the campaign. A Candidate, by necessity, must pretend to be something he/she is not while trying to win our votes. They have to lie to us. They have to tell us what we want to hear. They have to pretend that our issues are the most important issues in the world, and they have to promise us that, if elected, they will make the sagging cotton economy in southwestern Ohio (or whatever) is the number one issue that they will address.

It's bullshit, but it's necessary bullshit.

Unfortunately, we as a species lack true empathy. Our decisions are dictated by our experiences, and our experiences are, by definition, ours - they are specific to each individual. As such, a candidate running on a platform of, let's say, universal health care, must make universal health care important to each and every one of his or her constituents. The problem is, universal health care doesn't mean anything to me. Philosophically, I'm behind it, but I get health care through my employer. So why should I give a shit if some random dude who I'll never meet gets taken care of?

I know, I know, there are all sorts of arguments for why I should give a shit, but since my mother will never read this I can comfortably admit that I still don't. Go ahead, preach the "human right" aspect. Go ahead with the "it saves us all money" pitch. I don't care. Well, I kinda don't care...more to the point, I don't care at the moment because I'm trying to make a larger point.

Now that is not to say that universal health care isn't a very important issue for some, or even many, of a certain candidate's constituents, it is just to say that it isn't an issue for me. So to speak to me, the candidate will have to find another issue. For what it's worth, my hot button issue is the economy. I need a candidate to promise me that under their leadership Americas economy will be strong. Fancy new TVs will be cheap, innovative new products will be falling out of the sky, and I will be able to make a better than decent living so I can afford all the ridiculous crap that I, at one point, promised myself would never be important to me.

So how does a candidate get my vote? If he or she comes to me preaching universal health care I'm going to go back to playing my PSP. So instead they come to me promising me the world in terms of economic growth. Problem is, I - like a jilted lover - know that they were just down the street whispering sweet nothings in some old woman's ear about how her prescriptions will be cheaper come November.

Well, which candidate is the real one? There's only one thing they can do first, and they have now promised both me and Betty down the street that our agenda will be it. Truth is, probably neither one was true.

So I never voted. I always believed that I couldn't vote - that it would be irresponsible for me to vote - because I genuinely had no idea who I was voting for. Any candidate that I voted for would be some sham, some pretty mock up designed to appeal to the voter in me. The Candidate could have little or nothing to do with the actual President I was helping to put in to power.

And then we got President Bush.

I mean...Jesus.

Quick: name 5 good things he's done in eight years. Eight Fucking Years. Eight years, and nothing to show for it. No Child Left Behind? Huge failure by any standard. Prescription Drug Reform? Written by the Pharmaceutical Companies? Nope - failure. War on Terror! Yeah! That's gotta be the one! Oh...wait...Al Qaeda is actually STRONGER now than it was before?

All it seems this man has done is to significantly expand the powers of the office of the President, while not using those powers to accomplish anything for the country. If I weren't secretly hiding an optimist underneath this angry, angry pessimistic shell I might accuse President Bush of pursuing power for power's sake. As is, I'll just fall back on the old "incompetence" excuse. However, that's not much of a choice when it comes to the Legacy Department. "Hey George, would you like my to title your biography The Most Incompetent President Ever, or How Evil People Use Power to Create More Power For Themselves?"

So anyway, I vote now. Well, I voted in the mid-term elections and I plan on voting in the Presidential election come November.

Sure, I still have some issues. I do live in Minnesota, which means that my particular vote plus two cents will be worth about two cents.

You remember that South Park episode where they forced the kids to choose a new mascot, and the choices were a Giant Douche and a Turd Sandwich, and Kyle wouldn't do it so they exiled him? Vote or Die, Motherfucker...Vote or I will Motherfucking Kill You. In the end, he decided he'd come back to participate, and he cast his vote for Turd Sandwich, and they counted the votes and Giant Douche won 1410 to 36?

Well it's hard not to feel that way - particularly in a Representative Democracy where so long as one more person in any given district votes for one candidate over the other, all their representatives go accordingly - meaning anyone else who voted beyond that one was just wasting a perfectly good Tuesday afternoon.

However, at the very least by voting I can pull a Homer from the Citizen Kang sketch in Treehouse of Horrors VII. You remember, the one where aliens Kang and Kodos take over the bodies of Bill Clinton and Bob Dole and use the election to take over earth?

Anyway, Kang wins and dystopia ensues. As the episode ends, we see the Simpson family slaving away carrying massive stones for their new alien overlords, and Homer says "Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos".

(If you're wondering, by the way, the answer is "yes" - a fair bit of my political, ethical, and personal philosophy will be drawn using examples from prime-time cartoons. )

Luckily, this time around I don't believe that we have a George Bush in the running. Sure Obama's experience is questionable, and I have my doubts about Sen. Clinton's ability to work on both sides of the aisle to actually get anything accomplished, and Sen. McCain is starting to worry me with all this talk of "10,000 years in Iraq" - well, and besides, he's a Republican which has become pretty synonymous with "evil" in my mind. But even with their downsides, I don't think any of them could manage to fuck up the country as badly as it has been for the past two terms.

So I'll cast my vote, and hope for the best. If not, at the very least I'll be able to say "don't blame me, I voted for Kodos."