On Politics

I am not a political person.  It just doesn’t interest me all that much. I suppose if I had to choose some political affiliation it would be a very liberal republican or a very conservative democrat. Mostly I vote for people based on my perceived intelligence of them—not party lines. I am biased against stupid people. So this past presidential election presented a difficult decision for me—I thought that both McCain and Obama were both intelligent men—and on the basis of intellect alone I thought it was a dead heat. So I was forced to discern between the 2 candidates based on their running mates. And although Sara Palin was exceptionally well-dressed in her designer suits and high heeled boots, that was just about all I thought she had going for her. She didn’t then, and still doesn’t strike me as being particularly sharp-minded. And since John McCain was a tad old, I thought if he died while in office, Sara Palin was not the person I wanted to see at the helm.

But besides intelligence there is one other factor I use to make my political decisions—and that would be: perceived integrity. When Bill Clinton was asked if he smoked pot he said yes—but he didn’t inhale. I found that incredulous. I doubted the verity of his statement. When Barack Obama was asked if her had smoked pot he said yes. And when the reporter asked him if he had inhaled, Obama said well I think that was the point. I liked that response. It was honest. It was also pretty clever. Little things can be very telling.

Every morning an elected person who lives nearby walks their dog. And every morning the elected person takes the plastic bag off of their neighbor’s NY Times and uses the bag to contain their dog’s excrement. Now to be honest, I have walked my dog and found myself in the situation where my dog went off schedule and relieved himself when I was devoid of some poop removal device. And I have resorted to pilfering the nearest available containment vessel—like a plastic bag off of a newspaper--- so that the dog’s residue could be promptly removed. I believed that even although I was pilfering a plastic bag , it was a better alternative than leaving my dog’s waste behind –it was justifiable pilfering. But this person is not in that predicament. This person relies on the neighbor’s newspaper bag every morning for their own personal use.  And it has been witnessed that on occasion the person even peruses the headlines and body of the newspaper first before setting the naked newspaper back in its place.

And so anyone who takes plastic bags that do not belong to them (even though the bags are worth only about ¼ of a penny) prompts my concern—I no longer trust them. My confidence is shaken. No plastic bag is safe in their presence. And for that I will punish them at the polls. Sometimes the littlest things can sway someone’s vote. And I am certain that other politicians may have lost elections for ever lesser things than inflicting intentional nakedness to a neighbor’s newspaper.