What, you may ask, does a tornado and a politician have in common? I'll tell you. It blows into town from nowhere, with high gusting winds, howling incessantly and spreading junk across every lawn and piece of waste ground in the neighborhood. Sane people dive for cover when it comes into view, there are pieces of paper scattered all over the floor as it passes through, and it disappears again as quickly as it arrived, leaving everyone wondering exactly what happened - and why to them? Tornadoes do pretty much the same thing.
Here in Illinois this week we had the pleasure of the Republican Party nomination roadshow coming to town, with 4 major candidates fighting it out to win the right to challenge Mr. Obama at the polls this coming November. Funnily enough, only 2 of them decided to put up an appearance in Illinois to support their nomination bid - Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul did not campaign extensively here, preferring to spend their time in states they clearly think they have a better chance in. It seems an alien concept to me to not even bother turning up.....
At the same time there was a lot of other local elections for State and local Congressional Seats, judges, Sheriff's and the like. Wherever I went over the past 2 weeks I was confronted by someone who believed that they could do a better job than whoever was currently in the seat (or can continue to do a better job than those trying to unseat him, et al) - and wanting to tell me all about it whilst sticking yet another campaign leaflet into my hand so that I could remember his name later. Between all these different candidates vying for the public's attention the local TV and Radio media moguls get an opportunity to feather their nests as everyone wants to make sure that their message is heard as loudly and often as possible (or that they can afford). Every time you turn the radio on there's another support group telling the world what a better place it's going to be just as soon as Peter Politician is elected to the grand stage. It was very ironic that whilst all this politicking was going on around this great mid-western state, the former Democratic Governor Rod Blagojevich was heading off to start a 14 year prison sentence for trying to sell Barack Obama's Senate Seat (along with 17 other corruption charges) - joining his predecessor George Ryan (Republican) to 'serve his country' in a Federal Penitentiary at the same time (although in different prisons; Ryan in in Indiana whilst Blago is in Colorado). We can now proudly profess at dinner parties around the world that Illinois not only has 2 former Governors currently 'serving', but Blago became the 4th former Governor of Illinois to be convicted of 'white collar crimes' since 1968.
The interesting thing about the Primary season in particular is the way that the candidates take the greatest of pleasure kicking lumps out of each other in public - and these are members of their own party remember! Very little is off-limits when it comes to spilling the dirt on your brother-in-arms - although sexual transgression seems to be the one area that is generally left alone. Tell the voting public - on air - that your opponent is a crook, a criminal, a tax-dodging fly-by-night, an abortion-supporting (read MURDERER in Republican-speak), terrorist-loving liberal who dodged his National Service, and everyone nods sagely and accepts the bending of the truth as fair game. Mention that the 3-times married candidate once suggested a tryst between his current and prior wives and the population is aghast.... "Unfair!", they shout - isn't a man allowed some privacy in his personal life? The rest of the field sniff, look away and thank God for the conservatism of a nation.....
By the way - Mitt Romney won.....
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