If only Major League Baseball counted like this, maybe Barry Bonds would be irrevelant. I said yesterday was my milestone 100th blog but that would actually be this one? What does it mean. It means I wasted my Circuit City gripe on my pithy 99th blog and makes the actual milestone really anti-climatic. Nevertheless, here we go. And I'm going to cheat and use piece I wrote that ran in our print editions today. Maybe it'll get somebody's attention. Don't forget to cast your vote at my new poll and be nice.
I didn’t catch the CNN/YouTube democratic presidential candidate debate last week.
Perhaps, that means I’ve officially fallen out of the demographic that needs their politics to be sitcomized into cute, tiny tidbits. The same demographic that needs the importance of their voting decisions relayed to them on non-threatening, 3-by-5 flash cards or, worse yet, celebrities and musicians.
That probably means I’m on the fast road to curmudgeondom – where I sit in my easy chair, or in this case, in front of my computer and hearken back to the good-ole days when, excuse the cliché, being president was a childhood dream, not a millionaire’s dream. I don’t know what those days were like – way before my time.
Welcome to the life of a politically, disenchanted young person.
I’m the person that this gaggle (emphasis on gag) of politicians are trying to influence with gimmicks like fielding video-taped questions from YouTuber’s with guns, wigs and lesbian partners.
This is important, so I’m told. These are politicians getting down on my level to answer questions about issues that are important to me. I should be excited about this.
I yawned.
The only time I don’t yawn is when presidential wannabees traipse across the stages of late-night talk shows. It’s another important reminder that politicians are just like me.
I’m already asleep.
I’ve given up on politicians trying to be just like me. I don’t need to know their iPod play-lists, get a sneak peek at their Hybrid cars or have an exclusive photo of them snuggling with a Roomba on their spotless living room carpet.
I’d manage to stifle a yawn if I heard any of them fretting about their monthly mortgage payment, how we make the world a better place for my daughter and, someday, her kids or even a small gripe about the rising cost of milk at the grocery store.
I can’t fault them entirely or, more specifically, their campaign advisors.
But for now I’m content without another politician pretending to understand my problems and my worries.
I don’t need a presidential candidate to be me. I’d rather someone inspire me to be more like them, rather than lowering themselves to be more like me. Someone who could actually rise above this inevitable partisan debate that leaves a group of grown men and women pouting under the proverbial playground like a 5-year-old left out of the game.
But, for now, I’m left with cute.
I’m in political nomad’s land. Not old enough to want to hear politicians talk to me about Medicare or Social Security but too young to believe some goon who watches American Idol is the best choice to lead our country.
Maybe the best way to get around my concerns is to cast me as a political neophyte – unable to grasp the complexity of a presidential campaign. A young punk unwilling to, if not accept, at least acknowledge the thin tightrope a candidate must walk to appeal to a wide range of voters.
And, in that respect, maybe I’m better off as a voter crossed off the list. After all, if you can’t reach me through YouTube, MTV or my favorite movie star, I’m a lost cause.
But I’m still a vote. A vote I won’t pass up because too many people died to give me this freedom.
But, more and more, I just wish I had someone to vote for.
