Editor's Note: This is part two of a five column series dealing with dating and relationships.
President George W. Bush thinks you're hot; he likes that low cut top. Howard Dean pulls the "fake yawn" to put his arm around your shoulder during a showing of "Underworld." John Edwards tries to slip you the tongue when he kisses you on your doorstep.
Isn't that what elections really are? Various would-be boyfriends hitting on Ms. America? Campaigning and dating are the same thing, and I deeply abhor the shallowness of both.
First off, you've got your girlfriends from the Fox News sorority trashing some of the guys pursuing you, all the while telling you to stick with your current boyfriend, the Texan frat boy.
Then there's wacky Michael Moore, director of "Bowling for Columbine," saying pick the one who will jump into his mosh pit. Or, better yet, why don't you date his Ficus plant? At least it knows Ben Franklin's adage "Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt."
As any pursuing male will tell you, dating (and campaigning) is expensive. And really it's just money burning on the altar.
What gets to me the most, though, is the pure artificiality of it all. You rarely meet real people. As The Man, Chris Rock, says, you meet "their representative." The candidates are not who they seem. They and their teams carefully cultivate the image they want.
Note that we're not hearing much out of Senator Joe Lieberman these days about Hollywood's "toxic culture of violence and vulgarity" (Reuters, Aug. 20, 2000). Sure, he'll keep his mouth shut now about how provocatively you dress, but wait until you're going steady and he'll start saying what you can or cannot wear "within appropriate constitutional limits to improve the moral future of America."
It's going to be a rock and a hard place if he gets the nomination. The guy who turned most of the world against us by unnecessarily invading Iraq or the guy who blamed Columbine on Marilyn Manson? This shouldn't be as difficult a decision as I'm making it.
Yeah, our country's campaigning and dating systems are mediocre at best, pathetic at worst. But they're the best we can do--and at least they can't get worse.
Or can they?
We've already seen reality shows involving dating. Why not ones for presidential candidates? How about an electoral "Fear Factor"? Let's have Dick Gephardt chow down on pig testicles.
That's really not necessary, though. Politicians will make jackasses of themselves well enough on their own (Hey Arnold!), and we'll do the same. We'll watch, drink a few too many shots of their lies and inflated promises, fall for their advances, and finally cast our votes by sliding off our panties. Then we'll wake up in bed with one of these guys (or Arianna) the next morning. Pigs at the trough indeed.
I suppose the main flaw in this comparison is the simple, joyful fact that with dating, one can decide if they want to be screwed. We can always type "none of the above" as our write-in vote.
In the case of politics, though, pardon my cynicism, but we will always be screwed no matter who wins.
Write to David at swimminginbrokenglass@yahoo.com
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