Friday, August 13, 2010

Campaign Follies

Steve,

You will have to forgive me, but my "tipping the hangman" post was prompted mostly by the ridiculous robo-calls I have been receiving from Republican candidates - larded up, if you will, by the truly moronic and tasteless flyers I have been receiving in the mail. Somehow, I, a flaming, tree-hugging, free-swinging liberal, got put on some Republican mailing list. The year before last I even got a signed "best wishes" pic from John and Sarah. Jane, as staunch a conservative as ever walked the Earth, got bupkis from them.

This is not to say we libs don't have our fair share of hypocrites and ne'er do wells. Its just that lately, to my eye and ear, the conservative stuff is wailing the tar out of the liberal stuff when it comes to cheesy, hard to swallow promises. I even got a robo-call from some dude running for a minor, Paulding County office which led with his promise that he would do "everything in his power" to put a stop to illegal immigration - which made me stop and wonder how much power the office of dog catcher can bring to this issue.

My take on this is at least the liberals this year have paid us the courtesy of lying by omission. Cons on the other hand are lying by, well, lying. Not much to base your vote on I know, but if you have to vote for a liar, at least you have the opportunity of voting for a good one.

Nathan Deal's robot called me the other day and explained why his Republican primary opponent for Governor, Karen Handel, was about the only person in the universe capable of making Jabba the Hut look like Billy Graham. Apparently, Ms Handel favors giving money to promote gay sex between adult men and boys as young as 13. And that's just the tip of the iceberg, at least according to this tele-marketing R2D2. Imagine that. If this is the character of his campaign against a fellow Republican, what will he use against his Democratic opponent, napalm?

At age 60, my experience with American political shenanigans covers a lot of ground. I'm willing to concur that liberals in many past election cycles have trotted out the worst and most outrageous lies imaginable. The campaign of Hubert Humphrey (an otherwise decent fellow) was one notable example. They set the bar high - but these days conservatives seem to be clearing it with relative ease.

-Chris

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