Have we ever had this many
obviously-crazies up for major seats
with such a big chance of winning them, before?
National 'Mid-Term Election Day', All Saints But Not on Your Ballot Day, 2010
No nuttier than actually electing current whack-jobs for your rulers today is electing dead guys, so: The lates ~ great jester and his honorable 'Jr' (also WP Adair, his namesake):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Penn_Adair_Rogers
snips (but read the whole article & some of its links:
'He wrote frequently for the mass-circulation upscale magazine Saturday Evening Post, where Rogers advised Americans to embrace the frontier values of neighborliness and democracy on the domestic front while remaining clear of foreign entanglements.
Presidential campaign, 1928:
Rogers thought all campaigning was bunk. To prove the point he mounted a mock campaign in 1928 for the presidency. His only vehicle was the pages of Life, a weekly humor magazine. Rogers ran as the "bunkless candidate" of the Anti-Bunk Party. His only campaign promise was that, if elected, he would resign. Every week, from Memorial Day through Election Day, Rogers caricatured the farcical humors of grave campaign politics. On election day he declared victory and resigned.
What does the farmer need? Obvious: "He needs a punch in the jaw if he believes that either of the parties cares a damn about him after the election" (August 23).
Can voters be fooled? Darn tootin': "Of all the bunk handed out during a campaign the biggest one of all is to try and compliment the knowledge of the voter" (September 21).
What about a candidate's image? Ballyhoo: "I hope there is some sane people who will appreciate dignity and not showmanship in their choice for the presidency" (October 5).
What of ugly campaign rumors? Don't worry: "The things they whisper aren't as bad as what they say out loud" (October 12).[20]
"The average citizen knows only too well that it makes no difference to him which side wins. He realizes that the Republican elephant and the Democratic donkey have come to resemble each other so closely that it is practically impossible to tell them apart; both of them make the same braying noise, and neither of them ever says anything. The only perceptible difference is that the elephant is somewhat the larger of the two.[28]
"Every guy just looks in his own pocket and then votes. And the funny part of it is that it's the last year of an administration that counts. [A president] can have three bad ones and then wind up with everybody having money in the fourth, and the incumbent will win so far he needn't even stay up to hear the returns. Conditions win elections, not speeches.[29]
"One sure certainty about our Memorial Days is that as fast as the ranks from one war thin out, the ranks from another take their place. Prominent men may run out of Decoration Day speeches, but the world never runs out of wars. People talk peace, but men give up their life's work to war.[30]
"Everything is changing. People are taking the comedians seriously and the politicians as a joke."
"Our foreign policy is an open book - a checkbook."
"The income tax has made more liars out of Americans than golf."[31]
"If stupidity got us in this mess, why can't it get us out?"
"Everybody says this here thing we're involved in ain't a real war. Congress says it ain't a war. The President says it ain't a war. 'Course the guys over here getting shot at say it's the best damned imitation they ever saw."
"A senator got up today in Congress and called his fellow senators sons of wild jackasses. Now, if you think the senators were hot, imagine how the jackasses must feel."
