Election Season
I am way less lonely since election season started. Up until last month, all I was getting in the mail were cable offers and two or three Pottery Barn catalogs a week (all because we bought that dumb magazine rack four years ago… It’s like smiling at the goofy new kid when you are in third grade. Ah! Leave me alone! It was only a magazine rack. Please stop following me. I just want to play tetherball with my friends). But now all of these strangely cheerful, yet sort of antagonistic, people keep contacting me with such vital information as: “Judy Chu is the only candidate for the State Board of Equalization who is endorsed by the California Teachers Association.” (OK, sorry, but have you ever seen someone work as hard as Judy Chu to get elected to this heretofore completely unknown state board? She has sent me more mail then any other candidate, including people who are running for real elected positions).
Today, for example, my mailbox was bursting with colorful patriotic fliers filled with helpful, unbiased information. I received a picture of Russ Warner, his wife of 35 years and their three sons. The oldest is a sergeant in the army, which is why you should vote for his dad. I also got a document with someone’s frightening grandpa admonishing me to “Save prop. 13.” The way, I am supposed to do this, apparently, is to vote no on prop. 82 (I am confused); a watchtower style reproduction of a watercolor painting of Steve Westly’s face; and a brochure that is working as hard as it can to convince me that Phil Angelides personally poured cement over thousands of acres of wetlands, somehow using the (pictured) yellow bulldozer, after which he (in all likelihood) cackled maniacally and spat right on the spot where the wetlands used to be.
I very much enjoyed a piece of campaign literature from a group that identifies itself as “Christians for Honest Government” (does that mean that it’s some sort of splinter group?) It is a plain white card that reads, “If you are happy with $4.00 a gallon gasoline, freeways being turned into 10 lane parking lots, your house taxes being raised to pay for welfare and education expenses for illegal aliens and their children, factories moving to China and India and other Third World countries, then do not read any further…” I don’t know what else it says because that’s where I stopped.
But, yeah, it’s been nice to be on the receiving end of so much meaningful correspondence, to be included in the “debate,” so to speak. And, in addition to the mail, I have been getting a series of exciting telephone messages from, I am not ashamed to admit, some pretty influential people. The Chairman of the California Democratic Party, the President of the California Teachers Association, Jerry Brown, and Al Gore (!) have all called me up to ask my support for various candidates and propositions they thought were worth my attention. So, I guess it does kind of feel like things are starting to turn around for me a little bit.
I am way less lonely since election season started. Up until last month, all I was getting in the mail were cable offers and two or three Pottery Barn catalogs a week (all because we bought that dumb magazine rack four years ago… It’s like smiling at the goofy new kid when you are in third grade. Ah! Leave me alone! It was only a magazine rack. Please stop following me. I just want to play tetherball with my friends). But now all of these strangely cheerful, yet sort of antagonistic, people keep contacting me with such vital information as: “Judy Chu is the only candidate for the State Board of Equalization who is endorsed by the California Teachers Association.” (OK, sorry, but have you ever seen someone work as hard as Judy Chu to get elected to this heretofore completely unknown state board? She has sent me more mail then any other candidate, including people who are running for real elected positions).
Today, for example, my mailbox was bursting with colorful patriotic fliers filled with helpful, unbiased information. I received a picture of Russ Warner, his wife of 35 years and their three sons. The oldest is a sergeant in the army, which is why you should vote for his dad. I also got a document with someone’s frightening grandpa admonishing me to “Save prop. 13.” The way, I am supposed to do this, apparently, is to vote no on prop. 82 (I am confused); a watchtower style reproduction of a watercolor painting of Steve Westly’s face; and a brochure that is working as hard as it can to convince me that Phil Angelides personally poured cement over thousands of acres of wetlands, somehow using the (pictured) yellow bulldozer, after which he (in all likelihood) cackled maniacally and spat right on the spot where the wetlands used to be.
I very much enjoyed a piece of campaign literature from a group that identifies itself as “Christians for Honest Government” (does that mean that it’s some sort of splinter group?) It is a plain white card that reads, “If you are happy with $4.00 a gallon gasoline, freeways being turned into 10 lane parking lots, your house taxes being raised to pay for welfare and education expenses for illegal aliens and their children, factories moving to China and India and other Third World countries, then do not read any further…” I don’t know what else it says because that’s where I stopped.
But, yeah, it’s been nice to be on the receiving end of so much meaningful correspondence, to be included in the “debate,” so to speak. And, in addition to the mail, I have been getting a series of exciting telephone messages from, I am not ashamed to admit, some pretty influential people. The Chairman of the California Democratic Party, the President of the California Teachers Association, Jerry Brown, and Al Gore (!) have all called me up to ask my support for various candidates and propositions they thought were worth my attention. So, I guess it does kind of feel like things are starting to turn around for me a little bit.
posted by kyle at 10:35 PM
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