Order another bag of peanuts, pass the cotton candy and get used to the smell of sawdust, because the circus tour has been extended. Yes, my friends, welcome to the primary that will not die. You’d think that after six thrill-filled weeks of hosting this sideshow competition of rival ringmasters outdoing each other in the “Like A Normal Human Animal Act,” the state of Pennsylvania would selflessly provide the rest of the country with a semblance of closure by permanently pulling up the stakes of this traveling Big Top. But no. They got addicted to the sound of calliope music and don’t want the spectacle to end. Selfish bastards. Read the rest of this entry »

As someone who cares deeply about the Democratic party and is tired of the almost 20 years of “shirts and skins” style ruthless attack politics between parties let me just say this:

Man, do the Republicans love Hillary!

And really, who would have thought it? It’s just a testament to what a marvelous, likeable, non-divisive, inspirational, diplomatic creature she is.

What she has been able to accomplish in terms of bridging the gulf of hatred between Democrats and Republicans is nothing short of miraculous.

Why, even her supposed opponent John McCain said to supporters recently that he thinks Hillary may “pull this nomination off yet.”

It’s like, he’s actually cheering for her!

Republicans used to despise her, and her husband, and yet now she counts among her supporters and active campaigners such right-wing stalwarts as Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter. Limbaugh has been working tirelessly to get her this nomination. Most people don’t even know this, but her husband appeared on Limbaugh’s show on the eve of the Texas Primary. Bill Clinton actually chatted with the man who referred to his daughter Chelsea as, “the White House Dog” and encouraged Limbaugh’s listeners (who often vote Republican, in case you didn’t know) to vote for Hillary.

Isn’t it amazing the way her loving personality and hopeful demeanor is bringing together the normally fractious Republicans and Democrats? Why, some Republicans are even willing to vote for her in this hotly contested primary contest.

Hillary is like Gandhi, with better outfits! Read the rest of this entry »

I think it’s time you and I had us a talk about President Whatshisname. Certainly time somebody spoke of him. Because I’m not sure anybody’s noticed, but he seems to have disappeared lately. And don’t go all blank on me: You know who I’m talking about. The guy in charge. Supposedly. The Decider. Mr. Mission-Not-Quite-Accomplished. The scaly dragon the Democrats forged the armor of their entire campaign to fight against has turned into the Incredible Shrinking Man and he just can’t stop. As forgotten as the stitching contractor for the ‘54 DeSoto Diplomat seat vendor. And while the Democrats ignore him, the Republicans have implemented a policy barring any reference to him under penalty of severe tingeing.

He went somewhere recently. Overseas, I think. And met up with this other guy who could have been Russian and who may, or may not be, leaving his job soon just like our guy; and the two of them together were as useless as a Powerpoint presentation on Viagra at a Eunuchs convention. Lame duck doesn’t even come close here. A meeting of clipped-winged hawks with 20-pound weights tied to their talons. A comatose vulture summit. Crippled geese. Biologically deformed Pterodactyl fossils encased in the amber pool of irrelevance, obsolescence and guilt. Whoa. OK. I’m done.

Then a few days ago, our guy, Whatshisname, Bush, held a press conference to admonish Congress about something really important. OK, something kind of important. It was importantish. He said. The problem is, no one paid any attention at all to what he was saying. Read the rest of this entry »

Tough situation: You’ve just been busted for calling hookers and it’s not just a pal calling to razz you. It’s the New York Times, oh and you’re Governor of New York. Did I mention you’re Governor? And not the usual kind of Governor that people expect to fool around on their wives and take money from dubious sources. No, you are the white knight, Mr. Clean, beyond question. You’ve even prosecuted prostitution rings. Is the hardest part resigning from office? I don’t think so. The hardest part is asking your wife to show up for the press conference. I can’t even ask my wife to pick up the dry cleaning. (Suddenly, I become in her eyes a 1950s male chauvinist pig.) If I asked her to stand next to me during this humiliation she’d kick me, then leave me, then come back and break my favorite things then kick me and leave again.

Which leads me to Ralph Nader. Nader is once again running for President of the United States, which creates in the left a mixture of indifference, boredom and anger. While I think Ralph Nader running again is inconsequential, I have always had great respect for the guy. He’s been clean and has stayed clean for 50 years. People used to try and dig up the dirt on him, but they stopped because there’s nothing there. He spent his life fighting greed and protecting consumers from companies that were willing to kill us to make a buck. In the late 1970s, his type of crusading was made impotent by the companies who set up their own “advocate” groups to counteract any true good advocates could do. They had more money and more influence as lobbies bought into more campaigns of various congressmen and senators. There was no other way to shape the future than to try and make a difference politically—and that’s why Nader ran.

I supported and voted for Ralph in 2000 and I’m not sure how I feel about that now, knowing what a massively horrible job George W. Bush did. Who could have guessed what a giant mess that would be? In 2000, he just seemed like a happy moderate Republican looking to be fair and nice… Turns out he was as moderate as Ghengis Khan. Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s some more sad news for Democrats: Most Americans are pretty darn happy. Let’s be clear. Most of what Americans categorize as sadnesses are really annoyances. And most of those annoyances come at the tail end of something really good.Take cell phones. They save time, money and the environment. That’s the fundamental reason why we buy them; because as cameras, they suck.How many trips in the dreaded SUV do we save because we called from the road to make sure the family wants the fourth rotisserie-chicken-and-bag-of-salad dinner this week? I got this job, not because I’m very good at writing. I got this job because I have better portable e-mail than funnier people, and I don’t belong to a union. Read the rest of this entry »

Boy this is hard one.

I’m a Democrat. Big D. I like most things Democrats like. I like less guns in the hands of lunatics (and if you’re not a policeman or a soldier and you want a gun, then I consider you a lunatic). I’d like people dumb enough to want to ruin their sex lives to be able to get married, even if they are gay. And I’d like public schools to actually educate the kids, even if the kids are not mine. And yes, I’d like idiots who have unprotected sex in this day and age to get pregnant and have the right to not have idiot kids. I like government to handle big things like law enforcement, health care for people who can’t afford it, building roads and bridges, making sure there is a safety net for the old and poor. And yes, shock of all shocks, I’m willing to pay taxes so that stuff is paid for. But to be a true Democrat, I have to make sure my dreams are never fulfilled by picking a candidate for president who will lose to a nightmarish Republican. This year it’s a nail-biter. Read the rest of this entry »

When I was asked to do this blog I was quite honored, then confused, and then scared. Then again, that’s how I feel every time a waiter asks me what I want to eat. I didn’t know what I had to say. It seemed too many people were yakking about politics all the time, anyway.

Election years are turning into election decades, candidates run around saying all the right buzz words and polling focus groups about which hairstyles make them look forceful. I’ve grown quite tired of the whole thing. Worse, I’m just plain cranky about it. I wish somehow we could all take the burden off our shoulders and go back to kings and emperors. On the other hand, those guys had very short fuses and cut off a lot of heads. And that’s if you were just married to them.

I realized I’m probably not alone on this. I think a lot of folks have grown tired of the process. Maybe it’s time for a little overhaul. Or a big one. Nah, a little one will do.

Let’s start with the two-party system. Unless you’re the staff at Chuck E. Cheese briskly moving one group of nine-year-olds out for another, the two-party system is archaic. I like folks on both sides of the fence. Sure, I can go Independent, but they have goofy names like the Green Party, which rhymes with too many insults, or even goofier candidates like Ralph Nader, which also rhymes with too many insults. They also attract the porn stars who decide to run for office, which doesn’t rhyme with anything, but actually makes the TV smell a little. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s desperation time in Hillaryville. They’re putting out fires faster than a Rocky Mountain ranger station during a lightning storm in the middle of an August drought. Due to the fact that a certain inevitability has proven to be highly evitable. And watching the nomination slip through their fingers has to be going down as easy as a deep-fried fork. Causing several revisions to what was previously a dead-solid game plan. Corrections that include, but are not limited to, banishing key staffers to “integral” precincts on the outskirts of West Texas. Further attempts to wring blood out of contributors who insist on impersonating dried turnips. And the most difficult fix: figuring out how to get the candidate’s husband to shut the hell up.

Yeah. Right. Good luck. You’d have a better shot at using a plastic butter knife to spay a pit pull on meth than try to muzzle this old dog. I suggest a wolf snare or tranquilizer gun as the best means to render the 42nd President of the United States docile enough to throw a choke chain around his neck. Interesting how quickly the game changes. It wasn’t that long ago, rival campaigns were complaining Hillary had an unfair advantage being married to a former President. “But he gets so much press.” And now it’s Hillary’s staff doing the complaining. “But he gets so much press.”

What was once a secret weapon is now an albatross tied by a frayed rope swinging wildly from the neck of the former First Lady. Read the rest of this entry »