>>> Edited For Content
By staff writer Mike Forest
September 15, 2004
I know very little about politics. If you took all that I know about politics and turned it into liquor, you wouldn't have enough to get a virgin freshman from Montana drunk. If what I know about politics was a coin, I wouldn't have enough to buy a dime bag. If what I know about politics was a car, I'd…pretty much be driving the same hooptie I have now. Politics is a non-issue to me. I'd rather watch handicapped kids play tee ball on a beach, and I hate kids, tee ball, and beaches. Cripples are okay though.
I have no use for politics, but I love election years. Every four years (or hectares for our international friends) everyone suddenly has an opinion about who should run our country. Even the acne-covered, long-haired, malnourished kid who flunked all his GED courses and stands behind the counter at your local fast food joint begins spouting opinions:
“Candidate Dumbass is gonna raise the minimun wage to $150.85 an hour. Wit dat kind of cash I can get me a jet ski. I ‘ways wanted one a dem.”
That's right, jackass. Burger King is going to pay you $150 an hour so that you can put a jet ski on sawhorses in front of your single-wide trailer. By the way, a Whopper value meal now costs $11,000. Go to hell.
However, last time I checked, we're still the home of the free and land of the brave. Anything goes, except for being or looking like a terrorist. Our nation was founded on the principles of freedom, justice, and other crazy ideas of some old dead white guys who said:
“I want a country where I can have sex with my slaves and worship my god in a little church not far from my home, which I will give some grandiose name like, Marzapanita.”
“What will we name the church?” asked another old white guy who is now dead.
“We'll name the church ‘Timmy.'”
This proclamation was met with cheers from other old white guys who are also now dead. They decided that kings were bad and presidents were good, although they were too drunk to have the official playing cards reprinted, thus permanently fucking up my poker game. “Let the people choose who will tax—I mean lead them,” they said. “We shall vote on who will be the president, and by ‘we' I mean men who own land.”
“What about women, slaves and men who don't own land?” asked a wig-wearing delegate.
“Fuck 'em!” Cheers. Glasses clinked all around the table and they drank until they passed out. The next day was spent cleaning up vomit and popping Tylenol, but they had so much fun drinking that they decided the electoral process needed to have this included somehow. They created the Electoral College, which is just like a real college: what you do during the day doesn't matter so much as long as you get hammered and hook up with a tasty freshman every night.
“Howill shlis college work?” one of them slurred.
“Everyone will vote, but each state will have representatives that vote for the state based on the total votes per candidate in the state. We'll make it so that once a total number of Electoral College votes are cast, a candidate will be named the winner,” boomed a pantaloon-wearing official.
“Why do it that way? Why not just count up all the votes of all the people (except women and other useless minorities) and then declare a winner?”
“Preposterous. That's too simple, too easy…too hard to rig.” Cheers. They all got drunk and passed out again.
That system worked for three thousand years. Right up until the last election. In the last election, one candidate presumably won the popular vote and one candidate won the Electoral College votes. This means that all the popular people who used to be cheerleaders and jocks voted for one guy and all the people like me voted for the other guy. Instead of following the Constitution and cutting the candidates in half and sewing them together so that each one is half of the other one, a guy in Florida named Chad flipped a coin and Bush was declared winner. I'm not sure what Chad's official title was, but I heard his name mentioned quite frequently. If I remember correctly, he looks a lot like Wolf Blitzer, but his name isn't anywhere near as cool.
This election is going to close again. The candidates are tough, rough, and evenly matched—much like the competing reality shows about boxing. Is it just me, or is the network fight much more interesting than the actual shows?
Just me? Fine.
It doesn't really matter who you vote for. It really doesn't. Neither candidate connects with college students. Neither knows anything about being in a rock band, doing drugs, shirking responsibility, drinking heavily, or ketchup (catsoup to Canadians). Neither has had to work for a thing in their life. Neither remembers what it's like to live on Ramen and Tang.
I know that upstanding community members like P. Diddy are encouraging all us young people to vote, but think about it: the more people who vote, the less your vote matters. Besides, who listens to P. Diddy? According to a commercial I saw on VH1, he listens to his iPod while he has sex. I can barely afford a free iPod and no one will have sex with me. He's no man of the people. Why should I listen to him?
So, as our Founding Fathers (the old, dead white guys) said, “Let's finish this keg and go get us some bitches.”
Go EC!
Coming soon: “Mudslinging: What to Wear.”