The Unexplored Question Re 2008 Election

Every trait of every candidate and every issue likely to sway voters is being dissected and examined as to the possible effect it may have a year from now on the election. Save one: The satiety quotient. 1) How sick and tired of hearing about the election and the candidates will voters be by November 4, 2008? And, 2) what effect will that “up to here” disgust have on choosing a president for the United States? The answer to 1) is: VERY! The answer to 2) is: NONE! People will vote from their gut as they always have. And by that, I do not mean they will vote emotionally. I mean, the majority of voters will pick a candidate they think will first, be good for their party, and second, be good for the country. I say the majority of voters. There will be the same old 20% who will vote as a way to tilt God’s image of themselves, or will vote as a way to not vote, or will vote for a moron to attest to their own self worth. Recently, the question of likeability has been explored. Likeability does not matter. Dislikeability matters a lot. Having a sense of humor will not get you votes. Having no sense of humor will knock you out of the box. On-the-job experience does not matter. It’s a selling point. Selling points don’t matter to voters. Selling points sell the people using selling points, as in, speechwriters and campaign managers. The people who use selling points keep their jobs by using selling points. But voters don’t care about selling points. Being a silly, over-the-hill old poop matters. Being two silly, over-the-hill old poops on the same ticket is manna from heaven for comics. Case in point: This morning, in his Op/Ed column in the New York Times (“A Résumé Can’t Buy You Love”), Frank Rich quoted Republican candidate Mike Huckabee’s rejoinder on Don Imus’s radio show. Huckabee said, “I may not be the expert that some people are on foreign policy...but I did stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night.” As Rich said, “So much for the gravitas points earned during a five-and-a-half year stay at the Hanoi Hilton.” Huckabee’s slap at John McCain was very funny. But Huckabee’s sense of humor can’t erase the fact that he’s an ignorant, nonsense-spewing religious fanatic. And McCain’s constant yammering on being a prisoner of war in Viet Nam only underlines the fact that he’s old and irrelevant and a butt of jokes, particularly since he’s teamed up with Joe Lieberman, another old and irrelevant butt of jokes. The voting public already is only listening with half an ear to the talking heads and pundits. I cannot imagine whom the Republicans can find to vote for, but then, I’m a Democrat, and I know whom I will vote for.