Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Swing voters for fun and terror

If it's Wednesday it must be Morford on undecided voters like there really are some.

But still, it must be said: How sweet it mostly is to live here in California right about now. Not merely for the weather, or the insane food, or the coast, or the culture, the variety, the nature, the beaches or the sushi or the music or the trees or any of the other usual suspects of wonky and dead-broke fabulousness the West side is so rightly praised/bejealoused over.

No, the source of our delight at this moment is our utter and glorious lack of soul-mauling political ads, the deeply gratifying non-existence of Romney and Obama pummeling all common senses into submission via billboards, TV, radio, skywriting and knocking on the goddamn front door every five minutes as they try with all their millions to sway that most bizarre of American creature, that most disturbing cultural substrata, that ideological cartoon character known as the “swing voter.”

Ah, the mysterious swing voter. Who are these bizarre beasts of the American political underbelly? Who dares, at this point in his/her wobbly existence, to have no concrete clue as to what’s going on, whom to vote for, or why they should bother to learn to understand how to care about any of it in the first place?
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Swing voter! You are like that mysterious giant eyeball washing ashore in Florida. You are like the toxic Flamin’ Hot Cheetos of the obese American schoolyard. You are like Sarah Palin in the bleary apocalypse morning: A weird, enthralling and slightly disturbing part of the news cycle for a short burst of time, before you fall back into the category of “just not very bright.”
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Perhaps, then, we should clarify further. Because if it’s sort of glorious to be in California where the electoral college is so devoutly blue, it’s perhaps even better to be in a city like San Francisco (or Chicago, Or LA, or New York, et al, or just about any decent college town in America), where there is never a doubt which way the electorate will go, and there is a sort of calm reassurance that there are enough smart people around to keep the joint in check.

Say what you like, but the truism is the same planet wide: the closer you get to educational and cultural hubs, the more liberal and progressive you become, and the less likely the notorious, undecided “swing voter” will have any meaning to you whatsoever.

Conversely, the less education and fewer worldly smarts, travels, you have, the more likely you are prone to fear, night terrors, a scowling and judgmental God, ever paranoid that foreigners will steal your popsicles, sex will make you blind and the gays will eat your soul. Romney 2012!
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