Partisan Politics

Why do politics have to be so partisan and so…bundled? I wish voting were more like candy store shopping. “Let’s see, I’ll have one strawberry anti-abortion, two get-out-of-Iraqs, a handful of chocolate-dipped stem cell researchers, the biggest and fruitiest gay marriage hater you have, seven animal rights activists with a side of beef jerky, and a large glass of chilled cheap gasoline prices. Now wrap them all in a huge healthy economy and ring me up! And throw in a Twix.”

The other great thing about candy-store politics would be that you see what you get and you can verify it instantly with your tongue. If “Bush the First” had been a lollipop, we could have found out immediately if his “read my lips…no more taxes” vow was really the promised cotton candy flavor or more representative of llama urine. Clearly the llama urine won.

But instead of candy-store politics we are forced to purchase surprise goodie bags from the Armenian hotdog cart parked outside the downtown Blue Boutique. “Leetle boy, I promees you thees bag have much goodies for you!” The much goodies are never visible and come from a container that strangely resembles a metal garbage can spewing green steam. We have to read the label on the bag and hope that its contents don’t involve liquefied lips and sphincters.

I don’t want to be forced to partisan platforms anymore. I find myself so liberal on many issues such as health care reform and public education, but I am quite conservative on moral issues. Why can’t someone come out and extend the middle finger to the elephants and donkeys? Build me a platform that I can throw myself at. Tragically, there have to be people out there that agree with me and have the desire and resources to put such a platform together, but without the support of the communist bat-blind liberals or the zealot fascist rightists, our heroes would be doomed to fail. Thus I have to go on not voting.

And complaining.