27 posts tagged “presidential election”
By now, perhaps you've heard that Chuck Norris has declared that right wing militant groups in the US are going to rise up and make him "President of Texas." "If," he says, "the state of the union continues to turn into the enemy of the state." He adds: "…we've bastardized the First Amendment, reinterpreted America's religious history and secularized our society until we ooze skepticism and circumvent religion on every level of public and private life."
Uh, dude, seriously? Now, you've decided that if things get too bad in America you'll break Texas off into your own little fiefdom of religious nutjobbery? Didn't the religious right's henchmen help bring America to the brink of economic destruction? That didn't seem to worry you, but the threat of freedom of religion does? I'm calling Chuck Norris out as a pansy-ass chickenshit motherfucker. Is Chuck afwaid of atheists? Boo! Is Chuck afwaid of freedom? Does Chuck wake up in the middle of the night, terrified of a vision of America in which people are free and happy and unoppressed? (And where kids don't have to read the Bible in school?) Also, you can have Texas, Chuck. The BBQ is pretty good, but it's just not worth the hassle.
That one was wacky enough, but then I read that Pat Boone was also dreaming of being appointed president following an uprising of pseudo-religious militias.
What the fuck, Gus? Have these ass clowns never heard of democracy? We just had a national election to decide who'd be president and you numbnuts didn't even run. You'll let Bush & Co. nearly destroy everything that makes America great, from our federally protected freedoms to our scientific innovations and our booming economy. But put one black man with a decent intellect in the White House and all the sudden, you want to overthrow the government.
Take note my people: this is why sane, secular, freedom-loving folks like you and me need to own guns. I think I'm going to start a militia and call it The Flaming Liberals. If there's going to be a war in America, I don't want the pseudo-Christian* rightwing nutjobs to be the only people who are armed.
*This is my new approach to calling these people out without insulting the actual Christians who may visit my blog.
No, apparently, I can't have my expiation yet.
As some of you are aware, there were two big things motivating my trip to Missouri to try to get out the vote for Obama:
1. The deep-seated fear of Sarah Palin becoming president.
2. The guilt I'm still carrying around over the 2000 election.
Like so many Floridians that year, I was inundated with campaign propaganda. Tons of mail and phone calls and people knocking on my door. The most disheartening thing was that it all sounded the same. Al Gore was not doing much to differentiate himself from George Bush. For the first time in my life, I lived in a state where my vote might matter, so I decided to strike a bold blow against the two-party system. I voted for Nader.
I have since had eight years to repent at length. Turns out, the lesser of two evils is still always less evil. So, this year, I felt that if I could go to Missouri and help it go Democratic, my guilt about being one of the 95,000 well-meaning people who turned the reins of government over to a giggling sociopath would be expiated. I could go forward, having paid my debt to society.
Alas, it doesn't appear likely that this will happen. Currently, McCain leads Obama in Missouri by about 5,000 votes, with roughly 7,000 provisional ballots still to be evaluated and counted. It's a moot point at least, except it means I'll be back in 2012, trying to goad people into voting for less evil.
Speaking of evil, how bad is it that I really want one of these CNN t-shirts?
Earlier outside my office, a professor in the German department was lamenting Obama's victory. He said, "I think it's a terrible mistake." He said, "I think people will regret voting for something as amorphous as hope." Then he said, "I just can't think of him as my president."
That's when I popped my head out and said, "I know just how you feel. After eight years, I am so tired of looking at George Bush and thinking, 'That's not my president. He doesn't speak for me.'"
Professor of German moved on and left me with a bigger smile than I was already wearing.
It made me think of my aunt and her unflagging love for the Kansas City Royals' third baseman. Aunt Matilda loved George Brett. She went to as many games as she could and watched the rest on TV. At the games, Aunt Matilda was rabid. It was common for her to leap out of her seat when Brett was at bat and scream, "That's my boy! Hit it out of the park, son!"
This was shouted so passionately that people occasionally leaned over and said, "Is that George Brett's mom?"
"No, no," we always whispered, "She just really loves him."
I felt that same way when I walked on campus this morning and strolled by the newspaper racks in the union, where all the big daily papers trumpeted: OBAMA WINS!
I wanted to shout, "That's my president! Hit it out of the park!"
But I didn't have a better place to hang up my freebie Obama poster. Sorry, Jeebus.
How bad is it?
As Spucko just told on me, it's so bad I was picking up loose change out of the gutter and off people's driveways while I was canvassing. Final total: $1.23. These days, that's almost a gallon of gas.
Another indicator of the economic hardships. The voter registration rolls we were working off today revealed a lot of 30 and 40-somethings living with their 60-year old parents. Ouch.
Oooh, the old dogs are tired.
Shoddy Chinese-made shoes, completely worn out after a day of canvassing year of walking to work.
Little kid-about 4- answers the door.
"Mama can't come to the door. She's naked, 'cause she just got out of the sour."
"I'm just here to ask her if she's voted today."
"What's boated?"
"Sorry, I can't vote. I'm a convicted felon, hon." Hon!
Said by a guy about my age, with a shaved head and a lot of tattoos, who was holding onto his chihuahua while we talked through the screen door.
No Obama signs in this neighborhood, but lots of cars with union stickers, so lots of folks who say they already voted for Obama.
We even get free t-shirts to canvass!
Spucko rocks the Sweet and Wholesome for Obama look. (You'd never guess she was a liberal elitist. Okay, fine, you probably would.)
