Politics & The Primaries

Well the primaries are beginning to kick into full swing. Iowa, Montana (?), New Hampshire, and now Michigan are complete; with South Carolina and Super Tuesday right around the corner it seems. I am not ready to make a choice of candidate yet (though your odds are better on the lottery than on betting that I will pick a Democrat), but I am ready to touch briefly on the entire subject of politics. Since politicians seem to revel in long winded pontification however, I thought that for a change, I would keep my own input short and sweet. I therefore present for your edification, some my own well-turned phrases on the subject of politics:

• Those who can’t do, teach. Those who don’t know usually manage to get tenure. Those who can’t do and don’t know become consultants and politicians.
• During election years, I often find myself contemplating the advantages of both monarchy and anarchy.
• Politics mesmerizes me like a venomous snake or spider. The process is fascinating, but you dare not take your eyes off of it nor turn your back on it, for fear of the harm that it will do you.
• When I listen to politicians telling me how they can make it a better world for everyone on the late night news, I simply pull the blanket up a little more tightly under my chin and say: “Tell me another bed-time story.”
• I am constantly amazed that liberal politicians think that taking more of my money in taxes will inspire me to work harder.
• It really is the case that life is mostly a “same shit, different day” situation. The only real difference is that during election years the toilet seems to back up more often.

And just so this posting is not entirely about my wit and wisdom, I present the following educational asides on the two main parties for your education and edification: Andrew Jackson’s opponents called him a “jackass” during his run for the presidency in 1828. He liked the image so much that he made the image of the animal the new symbol of his national party, the Democrats. The symbol of the Republican Party, the elephant, is credited to a cartoon by Thomas Nast in the Harper’s Weekly on November 7, 1874. The elephant in that rendering was depicted demolishing what was claimed to be the flimsy planks of the Democratic platform during that election.