im gearing up for a rant / essay about idiot voters. ignoramuses who, i guess, like vintage Bum Fight tapes more than the news that doesnt come on television.. cases in point: doug ford received about 300-thousand more votes than he should have on monday in torontos mayoral election. rob ford and sarah palin have both threatened in recent days to run for office again on their respective platforms of incoherent gibberish. sadly: the oaf candidate is in no danger of going away any time soon. (trust me: oafism is real -- i spent 6 years tracking every word out of George W. Bushs mouth -- and he sounded off like a numbskull nearly every time he opened his mouth - which of course livened up the base, who adored him because he wasnt eloquent or thoughtful.) - its time, NOW, for a candidate, or a party, or a movement to stand up and end the Time of the Lunkhead ... but how? The problem is: the Fords and the Palins and many, many more count on a majority of voters to be vacant, gullible and uninformed --- and that strategy works like a charm. OK ...Toronto: do you know anyone who voted for rob or doug ford ? ask them casually what rob or doug ever did for the city, or promised to the city, or what the fords represent, or what their vision is, their platform ..etc etc etc. ... ask them to describe their favourite ford idea, promise or goal the fords have articulated ... ask them to come up with anything about the Fords platform. you might get some gravy train dribble -- but im positive the vast majority would feel -- but wouldnt say -- that they voted for the fords because the two brothers are as rah-rah about nothing as they are. (note to Seinfeld: sell your tag line to the Fords for their upcoming 2018 campaigns --- A Show About Nothing). from lincoln to nixon to trudeau to harper -- no politician is perfect by any means. but there was a time when you couldnt have a prayer of maintaining a run for office if you perpetually shaded the truth; the media would bust you hard --- one major falsehood / slash / misstatement could bring your expensive candidacy down. (never mind erratic behaviour - see Hart comma Gary). you were fact-checked -- if you told an outright lie, you would get blasted by fairly diligent journalists about 24 hours later... which was the news cycle back then. if you answered a question with insane / wrong / circular logic --- you werent long for the campaign trail. The clearly documented record is that doug ford is a hooligan, a lout, and either very stupid and a bit of a liar, or a large liar and moderately stupid --- AND he enabled the biggest political laughing stock of all time, his brother. Yet ... he scooped the votes of a third of turnout voters. how ? Democracy says: vote for whoever you want, majority rules, etc. but this guy had no more business being mayor than Otis the town drunk. almost every statement he made in myriad debates was wrong or dubious -- and although he only had a few weeks on the trail, he managed to slag women, jews, journalism and truth .. just for starters. he didnt win -- but its alarming that he got more than 319 votes. olivia chow -- and john kerry --- would have stood a much better chance if they had come out rampaging against the oaf movement candidates from the get go, instead of taking the high road. not just to score points against the idiot fords/bushes -- but to maybe make people think about why massive numbers of people vote for candidates who would be stone-cold doomed the minute their supporters began to think and reason. (side point: i was working for a certain politically bent cable news network during the previous decade --- and the dems were the laughing stock in the republicans eyes, because they didnt know how to fight dirty.) As my hero HST once wrote: Jesus ... how low do you have to stoop to be president in this country ? the question is not how to keep imbeciles off the tickets -- its how to keep imbeciles away from the voting booth. lemme know, ill compile a best-of. leger can write it.
Posted on: Thu, 30 Oct 2014 05:55:19 +0000