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In his latest post, Gilgemesh has voiced his disappointment, not only in the candidates, but at playing in a rigged game all together.  The way I see, it, if the game is boring, cheer on the cheerleaders.

While it is true, in the remaining Primaries, if you are a Republican or Independent, you have no real options, and in Pennsylvania, most likely you won’t have much of an impact on the November Election, but that’s not a reason to head for your car to beat the traffic and just listen to the rest of the game on the radio.  I’ve always enjoyed the primaries, not for any information they provide, but for the entertainment.  As things boil down to a close, and the last few candidates remain, that’s when politics really take a turn for the silly. 

Gone are the “plans for America” or new policy ideas, and instead you get the slap fights.   First they start with all the “scandals” and misquotes, firing back and forth at each other, digging up ever little thing that could possibly be taken wrong and out of context.  Basic name calling, labeling, and the blind accusations with which most elementary school fights start with.  And as they are slinging this mud at each other, they just make you wonder, why we should vote for either of them.  Ahh, but then comes the next step (my favorite), the “I’m more electable, and have a better chance of beating the other Parties guy.”  Its no longer, I’ll be better for the country, or I can lower your taxes, get you a new car, and fight the good fight; its now, I am slightly less likely to lose.  It turns our elections into “Survivor”.  Perhaps its just a sign of how jaded voters have become with the whole idea of the government.  It boils down to, of all the candidates that I don’t like, which one do I dislike the least. 

Your vote is no longer to elect someone, but to vote the other guy off.  Just watch and listen for the “risk alienating all the white supremacists” vs the mobilization of all the ”Woman hating man beasts”, or conversely “gaining all the black or female votes”, because as the primaries will tell us, we aren’t going to vote based on any actual issues.  So, when the real election comes,  what’s an American to do?  Change the game on them, use the write in.  Just think how much more interesting the Super Bowl could be if some Arena League team suddenly took the field in the 4th quarter.

Its a generally a haphazard technique used each time, often ending with Ralph Nader taking in as many votes as Mickey Mouse, but that’s due to most falling into the “I didn’t want the other guy to win” trap.  If enough votes actually went to candidates that matched your view points, and turn out for the main 2 parties greatly diminished, it might actually wake up some politicians that the same lines of bullshit aren’t flying anymore.  Its not a perfect method, but it has worked. Kind of.  Strom Thurmond started off his Senate career by winning as a write in candidate in 1954.  In 2004, Donna Frye would have been declared the Mayor of San Diego, had voters not been so baked on suntan lotion and filled in the ballots correctly.  And despite a foot powder being voted Mayor of an Ecuadorian town in 1967, the write in actually saved a Tennessee State Senate Seatfrom going to the opponent of an assassinated candidate, a man who was in jail for committing the murder (and this was just in 1998). 

You can find an endless list of possible write in Candidates here, where you’ll find Reformers, Greens, Socialist, and people from all walks of life (no links needed, you know how to google).  For the extremely lazy, you can even write in Da Vid.  But the beauty of the write in is that you aren’t even limited to those choices, even ones that don’t really exist (kinda like picking Jedi as your religion). 

As tempting as it is to go with writing in Zod, the problem is, besides he’s fictional, is that he’s not constitutionally allowed, as he is an alien, and not just “born in another country” alien, but a whole different galaxy alien.  I think I’d have to go with the Predator Party. 

Okay, it doesn’t really exist, yet, but it would be perfect, and November is a great place for it to start.  The Predator Party would have former Minnesota Govenor Jesse Ventura as President, and current the California Governorator as VP.   Even Futurama showed it was possible.  Both have shown a great distaste with playing “within Party lines”, in fact, Mr Ventura has left pretty much every party he belonged to, with unkind words said about all.  Both have trended to an openness of government, even giving back the ability to vote on most issues, when the elected officials were too busy fighting amongst themselves.  Balanced budgets, environmental concerns, breaking down bureaucracy, all supported.  Both actually held the highest approval ratings ever recorded for their respective offices at one time.   Their tendency towards frankness helps negate the “sound bites” and “will sound go on TV” maneuvers.  In fact, Ventura hated the media so much, he had all the press passes say “Media Jackal” and claimed that the media was one of the main reasons he didn’t seek reelection.  This battle will help end the “fair and balanced or overly liberal” manipulations the infect the majority of Americans today, the news will have to go back to actually reporting news instead of creating or sensationalizing it (another rant for another day).  Hell, they can even bring in one time Kansas Governor and Senate Candidate, Sonny Landham as a cabinet member.  He could be a good Secretary of Education, he was in porn, so we could be sure to get sex education in schools.  Of course, we would still have the business as usual problems with Congress.  Would just mean a slow process of weeding out the incumbents with more write ins.  Carl Weathers perhaps, and for an opposing and more worldly view, Dolph Lundgren. 

Now is that a group of leaders you really want to mess with? Besides as the years go by and the party builds and builds and builds, when Zod does finally come and run for president, the headline “Election 2060 “Aliens vs Predator” “, will make all of us that survive the Zombie Wars giggle just a little.  And that’s what its really all about.