GateHouse — I think I speak for everyone in this election cycle when I say: I NO LONGER CARE IF YOU WIN, MR. PRESIDENT, JUST STOP EMAILING ME.
OK, so yeah, full disclosure: I’m voting for Obama. I may have already voted for Obama, depending on when this runs in the printy newspaper. Anyone reading this who just went “Yay!” awesome, let’s have a cross-country fist-bump or whatever. Anyone who just went “Boo” at your paper or personal computer machine reading device, take comfort in knowing that I love in South Carolina, and there’s literally nothing I can do to make my vote count, south of launching a plot to dismantle the electoral college and WHY WOULD WE WANT TO DO THAT WHEN IT WORKS SO EFFECTIVELY.
Seriously, I could vote 50 times in South Carolina and still, nothing. Jack democracy squeedoodle. Last time I voted it was at a retirement community, one of those four million-acre deals with tract housing and street names like Singing Robin Lane and Glorious Waterfall Cul-De-Sac and the fanciest shuffleboard courts this side of Branson. Honestly I was pleasantly surprised my machine even had a button for Obama on it. (Turns out it was a very small button with one of those old green Mr. Yuk stickers on it, and when I pressed it said “Syntax Error.” Finally I had to request a write-in ballot, which also didn’t work because in South Carolina all write-in ballots are delivered by alligator.)
(True story: I brought my four-year-old to vote with me, because, I figured, nothing could divert the sweet, elderly and very Republican South Carolina populace from my nefarious Democratic Voting by distracting them like my adorable mop-topped son, who sang patriotic songs and mispronounced “refrigamator” adorably while I snuck into the voting booth and cast one of South Carolina’s 34 votes for Obama, and then we both sprinted out of there, hoping the locals remained lost in warm nostalgic memories of their own grandchildren before they could realize what we’d done.)
GateHouse — BARACK OBAMA HAS FAILED, according to basically everyone whose cocktail money depends on squealing like a monkeyperson on television about how everyone currently in office has failed, preferably on a show that’s on loud enough to prevent you from having to talk during dinner.
This is to be expected, as it’s been like 12 years since Obama murderated Osama bin Laden, and the question America wants answered is WHAT HAVE YOU EXECUTED FOR US LATELY? Oh, I guess we’re just all supposed to sit around and WAIT for Decepticon attacks? Why hasn’t he taken care of errrmm whatever the villain in the “Green Lantern” movie is supposed to be? Seriously, someone tell me, because that looks like a very silly video game for children.
Anyway, the news is so bad for Obama right now that he’s currently losing to a giant gaping yawning abyss of hopelessness. As most Republican voters wouldn’t be caught dead stepping one half-inch off the Party Line lest they be laser-fried alive by Michelle Bachmann’s avada-kedavra-powered deathray eyebeams, and full well knowing that their field currently resembles the undercard at a regional professional wrestling exhibition held on a Tuesday night at the high school gymnasium, a Gallup poll last week showed the troubled president down by 5 points to the generic opponent “A Republican,” which is funny for those of us in the writin’ business and officially tragic for those of you who HAVE OFFICIALLY SPENT A FAT CHUNK OF MONEY CAMPAIGNING ALREADY.
The poll showed 44 percent of respondents saying they’d vote for a blank space and 39 percent for Obama, with an unconscionable 18 percent saying they had “no opinion.” Maybe they’re waiting for a yearlong miserable economy, some clarification on social issues or the extermination of the world’s most hated bearded guy before getting around to brainstorming.
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I love this idea, like Obama loses in 2012 and they just randomly draw some white dude in a televised lottery between the monologue and first sketch on “SNL” and introduce him on Inauguration Day: “Ladies and gentlemen, please congratulate President Glen Jenkins, unemployed former used-car-lot assistant manager from Dublin, Ga! Where’s Glen? Is he here? Wave, Glen!”
(Incidentally, replace “A Republican” with An Actual Republican, and suddenly, according to an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, Obama beats Romney 49-43. The state of politics in 2011: EVERYBODY IS LOSING TO NOBODY.)
So instead, I have a much better idea: With the GOP field making up for in volume what it lacks in pleasantness and electability, the way to go is clear: Create one, monstrous, all-powerful, Devastator-like SUPERPUBLICAN from the few appealing parts of each of the 250 embarrassing candidates, attach them to a faceless simulacrum floating in a tank full of saltwater in a secret evil underwater lab and give birth to a perfect cloneperson, Kid R if you will, who will not wake up sucking a lemon, as that is sort of gay.
Republican Serpentor will be perfect: He will have the fierce tenacity of Newt Gingrich, without the jewelry bill and wife-abandonment but with a campaign staff, which will help. He will have the single-minded focus of Michelle Bachmann, without the need to drink cord blood to survive. He will have the smooth, approachable, presidential-looking appeal of Mitt Romney, but without the weird religion that those nice “South Park” boys did the play about or the 800-lb. weight of a healthcare plan hanging off his hair. He will have well pretty much nothing from Tim Pawlenty. He will have the business acumen of Herman Cain, but without having to be identified as a “pizza magnate,” and not even one from a company anyone knows. And he will have Sarah Palin’s kingmaker powers and ability to make news with his every proclamation, bus tour or tweet, but with the ability to recall American history and go 10 minutes without being on a reality show. Also he’ll have Storm Shadow’s ninja powers.
Yeah, take that love to the CBO with those budget forms, you chirpy red granola bar
GateHouse — Big losers in the budget passed by the House of Representatives: Ira Glass, people who have yet to realize the dream of having Carl Kasell’s voice on their home answering machine, people who hate eating hairball-and-sawdust-contaminated hot dogs, women, Elmo. Actually those last two may be redundant, as I’ve never been able to satisfactorily determine the gender of Elmo (despite its name, which can be either a boy or girl name in his Kenyan birthplace), but it doesn’t matter, as funding to research the gender of Elmo has also been cut.
Welcome to month one of Budget Nightmare Hellscape Awful Craptacular Hatefest, only the very beginning of almost certainly intolerable decades-long hypocrisy slog in which everyone will light torches and carry pitchforks and light pitch-torches (the latest new thing in angry mob chic, Kanye blogged about them even) about how important it is to cut the budget, and then light torches and carry pitchforks and light pitch-torches when things they like start getting cut from the budget.
Indeed, many Americans, having failed after the last election to see an instant, glorious and revelatory increase in their quality of life, have made a Drastic Change, which will remain firmly in place precisely until the next election cycle, in which people will very likely fail to see an instant, glorious and revelatory increase in their quality of life, and make a Drastic Change. This will continue to go on for time immemorial, until hopefully, Earth is hit by an asteroid, which we won’t know is coming, as asteroid-looking-for funding has been cut by the House.
The budget is a slashfest of non-defense discretionary spending, which is pronounced “the part that isn’t Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security or the military,” so it’s a little like carrying a $79,000 credit card bill but being really serious about maximizing the Red Lobster gift certificate. Luckily, many of the of the most visible targets are all Muppets, like Snuffleupagus and Big Bird and Jim Lehrer, as the House budget zeroes out funding from those controversial Juan Williams-firers at NPR, PBS, and other stations that occasionally contain programming that doesn’t involve something like Bret Michaels crossing a rope bridge over a pond of flaming crocodile, which I’ve just realized I’ve written like it’s a bad thing.
This is among Google's top Image Search matches for "Paladino." Tragically, Carl Paladino actually looks like the guy below.
GateHouse — Two years ago Barack Obama soared to victory on an unprecedented wave of unity and a promise to bring together a nation torn by years of war, goalless partisanship and the erosion of American power, and that all went really badly, because it was a terrible idea that never had the remotest chance of working.
Good news, though: Because there are elections like every 20 days, we’re just a tantalizing few weeks from the midterms, which will solve all your problems, or at least they would if they weren’t being contested by terrible ogre-people who have made this easily the most appalling election ever. But don’t take it from me:
Funny story: Turns out ashen porno fiend and Tea Party-approved New York Republican gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino, who has basically spent the last two years e-mailing pornographic and/or racist emails to his MySpace friends and who insisted that that kids shouldn’t be “brainwashed” into not making fun of gay people, rented part of his sprawling real estate empire to gay bars where gay people hang out and brainwash each other. But I’m sure that’s nothing. I mean, it’s not like militant ultra-conservative anti-gay crusaders are ever found to be hiding anything.
Oh hey Ohio Republican House candidate Rich Iott dresses up as a Nazi on weekends to participate in war re-enactments, because why wouldn’t that be a good idea? Rich Iott: Finally, a national candidate who merges blatant, shocking intolerance with the heartbreaking sadness of being a war re-enactor.
GateHouse – As a 32-year-old American male, I am obliged by peer pressure, social trends and Scarlett Johansson to vote for Barack Obama, D-Coolsville.
Normally, I would do this willingly and with great enthusiasm, as throughout my history of presidential voting, which thanks to irregularities in Illinois’ voter rolls dates back to 1856, I have based my vote almost exclusively on Awesomeness of Teeth. And listen, John McCain, you seem like a nice guy, a nice old guy, a nice guy who wants to talk to me for like an hour, but my God man, have you seen Obama’s teeth? They’re like what I imagine the gates of heaven look like, if they were made of teeth, which they may be, though I was kind of hoping for, like, really shiny gold.
Yet I’m afraid that this year will be different. I cannot cast my vote for Obama because though I find myself moved by his words, mobilized by his message and inspired to action in a way I didn’t think possible by a presidential candidate, I just can’t feel good about voting for the antichrist.
I'm a a writer for such outlets as Men's Health, South Magazine, Nickelodeon's NickMom.com, Billboard, brucespringsteen.net and Paste, a syndicated humor columnist for GateHouse and a father of two (the younger of whom has been personally approved by Bruce Springsteen) on the coast of South Carolina. Even longer bio/clips.