I’m hooked, I’m an addict. I can’t pull myself out of it, I need my fix. No chemical could ever sink its claws into me like this addiction has. I am what Hunter S. Thompson described in “Better than Sex” as a “political junkie.” And at this time of year I’m inclined to agree with the good doctor. Presidential politics is better than sex….primary season is better than any sex I remember. It lasts a lot longer and I’m not so quick to get out the door the next morning. No with politics I stick around the next day. I may even make breakfast in bed and do little cuddling.
The Democratic Party’s primary season is really starting to heat up. Senators John Kerry and Dick Gephardt are starting to look desperate. They thought they would be the thoroughbreds in a pack of mongrels.
But instead they are having their butts handed to them by the former governor of Vermont. Howard Dean M.D. is starting to make house calls and he is roping in the all powerful A.F.L.-C.I.O one union at a time. Watching this political nobody reel in the cash cow that Sen. Gephardt thought he had wrapped up has the man from Missouri ripping out his hair.
You can’t really blame Gephardt for going a bit sideways in the confusion. After all he was the man behind the man when it came to President Bill Clinton’s economic plan. The plan that set records and gave the nation an economic boom that lasted a decade. The only problem there is the boom went bust and a lot of big wig CEO’s are wearing stripes these days which makes the boom seem more like the proverbial sickening thud. With all of the corruption coming out of the wood work it seems to be giving the average voter the feeling that maybe Gephardt had his hand in the cookie jar a little too long.
Meanwhile Sen. Kerry seems lost. He’s trying his best to stay in the fight in New Hampshire, but he’s losing ground to Dean quick. Although he earned a special spot my heart when he remarked that “you have two options for lowering prescription drug care in this country. You can either elect me president or higher Rush Limbaugh’s house keeper.” Wow, and just when I had about written the guy of as a humorless Michael Dukakis clone. But at the end of the primary season Kerry will be left weeping at what’s left of his campaign headquarters sniffling through his hands “but I fought in Vietnam.”
Then there is Sen. Joe Liberman. Poor Joe, he was so close to becoming vice president. He was beginning to make plans for the first Hanukah in the executive branch. But then his core supporters in Florida, the elderly Jewish crowd, got confused in the booth and wound up punching the card for Pat Buchanan. The irony in that is thicker than the summer air in Miami. However, he’s much too conservative to get the nomination. He keeps standing by the decision to go to war in Iraq and that won’t do, the liberals are getting uppity and they smell blood on the tracks. And they know that Liberman doesn’t have what it takes to go after Gee Dubs.
On the other side of the spectrum from Liberman is Rep. Dennis Kucinich, the political comeback kid. After a futile and embarrassing term as the mayor of Cleveland he got ousted and seemed to be sent out to pasture before his time, he was only 33 years old. But after some soul searching out in the dessert “Dennis the Menace” as his rivals back in Cleveland refer to him remerged in 1996, beating the Republican incumbent for his seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. He’s a tiny little dude with a bone to pick. So far his campaign has centered around taking President Bush out behind the woodshed and dragging along any other Democrat who strays too far from the left. But Kucinich’s odds at Lloyds of London are coming in at about two billion to one against him getting the Democratic nomination.
Then there is the general turned politician Wesley Clark. When he joined the race everyone in the party went bonkers. Collectively the Democratic Party sighed “Ahh…finally we have someone with proven military leadership. With this guy on board finally we can get this noose of being anti-military off our necks.” Even the vaunted crusader Michael Moore sent an e-mail encouraging everyone to get on the Clark band wagon. But that was before everyone started to realize that “hey this guy sucks eggs.” He brown nosed his way up the chain of command in the military ticking off his fellow officers. Then he shot himself in the foot when he couldn’t remember who he voted for in past elections. This guy wreaks of opportunist.
Then there is Howard Dean. The doctor is in and he’ll see you now. This guy is a shocker, a no name M.D. turned politician sneaks up on the party elites and starts fundraising like a maverick. He has a no nonsense style to him which I like, and it would be dishonest to say I’m not a supporter. But in the past few weeks he has made some stupid mistakes. First there was his ill-advised attempt to curry favor with white southern voters. When I heard that the doc said that he wanted “to be the candidate for the guy with the confederate flag on the back of his pickup truck” it was definitely palm slap to forehead time. Then there is this entire mess with federal matching funds and whether or not he’ll keep his word on staying within the system.
But in the end who cares? I love this stuff…the speculation the anticipation. Who needs to go out to the bars in a season like this? I’ve got a bottle of Jack Daniels and 24 hour cable news coverage plus C-Spann. Every four years most people get all hopped up about the Olympics. Not me, every four years is primary season. And I’m locked in and ready to go, let the games begin.