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Thursday, January 3, 2008

I Hate Huckabee

Well, it's almost a year before the presidential election is held and already the political season has begun. But right now it's Republican vs Republican and Democrat vs Democrat. Presidential hopefuls first fight within their party to become the endorsed candidate and then the parties fight each other for the presidency.
What amazes me is how vicious and slanderous the competitions get. I mean, you'd think people within their own party would be respectful to each other, wouldn't you? You'd be wrong. What's even more amusing is when somebody finally wins the nod from their party all the losers talk about how great they are and how everyone needs to support them.
It would be like if a coworker and I were both up for the same promotion and we all we did was talk about how lazy and useless the other is. Then my coworker gets the promotion but we're still expected to work on the same project together in a harmonious fashion. It just doesn't add up, in my book. But that's pretty much the definition of politics.
With the election looming I will probably be writing more political posts, and most of them negative. If you haven't figured it out yet, I'm incredibly liberal. So I really don't like the Republican party, but don't assume I'm a Democrat. They annoy me too. Mostly because the Democrats have zero backbone. Both parties annoy me to no end. My point is, even though I dislike the Republicans the most, I'll attempt to be fair and open minded.
This brings me to Mike Huckabee, who is trying to win the Republican endorsement over Mitt Romney. Huckabee is famous for being supported by action superstar Chuck Norris. He had an ad in which he stated his plan for 'securing the border' was Chuck Norris. Generally, analysts thought the ad was clever and that it would resonate with younger voters. (Apparently actually discussing the issues in a serious manner or discussing anything that's relevant to the state of our country whatsoever is simply overrated.)
Anyway, on Januray 1st, 2008 Huckabee held a news conference. At the conference Huckabee announced that his team was going to air a slanderous ad against Mitt Romney on television but he has decided to pull the ad because, while the ad was true, he didn't want to do a negative campaign. He then showed the ad to everyone at the conference so they could see the ad he had pulled. The pulled ad was subsequently aired on news stations across the country at no cost to Huckabee.
Huckabee was asked if this was a way for him to show the negative ad yet come out looking clean by saying he didn't want to air the ad. Huckabee suggested the reporter who asked the question was just cynical.
Hmmm...cynical? Interesting. Let's consider the scenario.
Let's say I'm Huckabee and I genuinely want to run a positive campaign. An ad is created and I find it too negative. What do I do? If I genuinely disagree with the ad, I simply say, "No, that's too negative. Let's try again."And that's the end of that. The only people who know I even pulled the ad is me, the people who made it, and maybe some of my assistants. The general public is not even aware there was an ad to pull.
It kind of goes under the same category as compliments and how the most genuine compliments are the ones you never hear. (Because then there's no ulterior motive when the person says them...in general.)
However, this is politics we're talking about. Anytime somebody does something remotely nice or ethical its shouted from the mountain tops. A politician won't even put a dollar in a salvation army bucket unless at least three photos are be taken of him/her doing it. So, if Huckabee was genuine in not liking the ad but still acting as a politician, he'd reject the ad and then send out a memo to all the news station describing how a negative ad was presented to him but his ethics would not allow him to air it.
Huckabee was obviously not being genuine. Because if you're genuine about not wanting this ad to air, there's one thing you simply wouldn't do. Show the ad, period.
But this is what I hate about politics. Politics is a game. It rewards those who are well spoken, great liars, and those who are able to fool the retards of the world. It has nothing to do with who is the smartest, who has the best ideas, or who has real world solutions to real world problems. Its about who's the most comfortable on TV, who has the whitest teeth, and who can insult there opponent the best and at the most opportune time.
The biggest problem with politics, though, is that its probably the most important thing in the world. I'm hard pressed to think of anything that affects people's lives more than politics. Yet people generally see it as a mere game. Millions of people ignore politics because its boring and so many more people will blindly follow party lines or pick the person they'd most like to have beer with. We're picking the leaders of our country here, whether or not I want to hang out at the bar with them is irrelevant. And who the hell cares WHAT Chuck Norris thinks.
But, I don't know what I can do. Political candidates are like books and people vote on which book's cover they like the most. The whole system is broken. That means the whole country is broken...and I have no idea how to fix it.

If you'd like to read the full story on Huckabee's press conference you can do so here: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/politics/la-na-goprace1jan01,1,6225128.story?coll=la-news-politics-national&track=crosspromo

2 comments:

  1. I'm pretty sure Chuck Norris cares what Chuck Norris thinks.

    Seriously though, nice analogy with the whole judging a book by its cover thing. The sad thing, they're not just picking any old book, they're selecting arguably the most important book they'll pick for the next four years.

    ReplyDelete

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