I keep my TV on a leash but I can’t stop political advertisements from showing up in my mailbox like some sort of expensive and depressing alien slime mold. This year one of the local elections has gone full retard.
It involves a guy I’ll call “Candidate A”. During the last go round Candidate A brutally defeated the incumbent. I’ll refer to that incumbent as “Candidate B”. Candidate B promised me cheaper broadband, green technology jobs, better weather, clean white teeth, a pony, and a handjob. (Well the last one might be a slight exaggeration. Only a slight exaggeration.) Candidate B came to my house and groveled most politely. She drove a Pirus and discussed everything from farm subsidies, a local clinic, freaking anything she could think of…. to get me to vote for her. I kindly and politely told her to get her free crack off my lawn and decided I’d vote for anybody with a pulse who wasn’t Candidate B. (If she ran unopposed I’d write in Frank Zappa.)
Candidate A, who won, appeared to be dumb as a box of rocks but he promised me absolutely nothing and seems to have done less. Well done sir!
This go round I’ve been getting negative political advertisements from both sides. Candidate A is now the incumbent but apparently this district is still hotly contested. Every day my mailbox has the same shit. “Candidate A clubs baby seals”. “Candidate C, the new challenger to Candidate A, is made entirely of evil.” “Candidate A once raped my dog…it could happen to you.” “Candidate C is a robot made by unions and built in Detroit.”
One day I got four negative pamphlets. Three from incumbent Candidate A and one from plucky challenger Candidate C. I’d had enough. I made my decision. “The incumbent, Candidate A, has spent too much money sending shit to my mailbox” I declared. “Anyone who’ll waste his own money that much shouldn’t be within arms reach of my tax dollars. He has lost my vote and I shall burn an effigy of him on the front lawn.”
Whew. It’s hard making informed decisions.
Then Candidate C went totally apeshit. One day I got three negative ads; “Candidate A is a secret gay mafia assassin”, “Candidate A causes the Plague”, and “Candidate A sets libraries on fire.”
“What the hell,” I moaned, “I already decided to vote for Candidate C, “now that tool is muddying the waters by blowing metric shittons of cash sending crap to my mailbox. Does he enjoy losing? Doesn’t he realize he’d win if he’d just shut his damn piehole?”
The next day there were four more from Candidate C. “Candidate A runs over nuns with his truck.” “Candidate A was hatched in a Nazi laboratory.” “Candidate A likes disco.” “Candidate A shot the tooth fairy.”
I also noted that the negative ads missed the mark for me. Accusing your enemy of annoying unions, being in favor of voter ID, cutting spending, and liking guns; this is supposed to make me dislike the guy. How? Have his enemies even seen the hinterlands where I live? Or do they drive Volts and therefore can’t reach this far from their home habitat of cities and cubicles?
My kitchen table had accumulated seven glossy mass mailers in 24 hours. Or, as I calculate it, one dose of asshole every 3.4 hours!
I changed my mind. Anyone who has pissed off folks so much that his enemies send me a glossy printed character assignation every four hours? He must be doing good! It takes style and flair to be that hated. I could kill, gut, and eat the neighbor’s horse and they wouldn’t bother to send seven consecutive fliers accusing me of being a duchebag. Candidate A has enemies with deep pockets and lots of spare time. Exactly the kind of person who should hate me too. I tip my hat to him. He infuriated entrenched interests for (as far as I can tell) doing nothing but wearing a suit and looking stupid. That’s awesome.
I’m now a committed voter for Candidate A. Negative campaigns work!
In one of his Autobiographical stories, Mencken tells of being sent to cover a revolution in Cuba. “Both sides were doing such rough lying” that nobody in the States could make head or tail of it. Mencken wires ahead to an acquaintance in Havana, who meets him at dockside. Asked to summarize the issue, the man recites a long list of accusations that B makes against A and vice versa and ends with “Both are right.”
The condition seems to be universal.
Out of the park, as usual.
Disco is not dead!
Elect me, and I’ll put a sparkly ball in the capitol rotunda!
Ohhh… sparkly!
If you did that and nothing else I’d not only vote for you but volunteer to help your campaign. “We are the polyester we have been looking for.”
However, there are limits; you get one incredibly fabulous election ball and then I’m unplugging the speakers and selling them on e-bay.
The really bad thing is all that glossy paper is pretty much useless. It doesn’t absorb bird droppings, isn’t good for fish wrapping, has too many chemicals to burn without catching cancer, and isn’t even useable at toilet paper if civilization ends!
Funny how hippy treehugger environmentalist kooks have no problems turning entire forest into waste paper.
The pages were more than merely glossy. They were some sort of super laminated cardstock that I’d rarely seen before. They almost looked like 1/2 sheets the thickness of a credit card and both parties (or their demon spawn PACs) were equally guilty.
I refuse to pollute my woodstove with whatever scientific miracle they’re shipping these days. Tragic! I’d be heartily disposed to someone who sent me a pamphlet on a nice fibrous firestarter though. That would almost be a “resource” instead of “trash in my mailbox”. (A lot like old school seed catalogues which are a joy to read.)
“They were some sort of super laminated cardstock that I’d rarely seen before.”
Cut into strips they make good bookmarks. Probably as close to “good” writing as they’ll ever come.
That might pollute good literature with stupid?
I wish they used good cardstock for starting fires. An election should cover the winter’s fire starting needs.
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