Today. This is it. Finish line of this wonderful democratic one-vote-per-person political system where a guy will spend hundreds of millions of dollars to hold onto his $400,000-a-year job.
Maybe because it comes with on-the-arm housing and — considering our petrol crisis — enough gas to fuel free transportation so his family can see parts of the world they couldn’t afford until it was all charged on our dime.
Finally we’re done. Over. Kaput. May the best narcissist win.
D-Day. I wish this were A or B-plus but it’s D-Day. Either Damn Bam or Mitts It.
Let he who hath a bad kidney cast the first stone.
Now, just because this has crossed my fragile limited mind, enough already with Ohio. What’s the hot deal with Ohio? Pollsters mumbled that it all trickles down to Ohio. Other than first week of November every four years, who ever mentions, even thinks, of Ohio! When’s the last time you woke up and said to yourself, “Self, what’s up in Chillicothe?”
Chillicothe? Wherever that is, its got 22,000 people whoever they are. Their hot Saturday night is watching some old geezer get a haircut. The dentist’s office is the public library. They had a dust storm, but nobody knew because what’s to blow away?
Take a larger town. Security at Toledo’s polling places is one guy at the door with bad breath. Their fire chief was hired because he owns a garden hose.
And network journalists get their knickers in a twist over Ohio?
Here’s the 411 on some of these big-time pols: Franklin Delano Roosevelt bummed money from his valet for the church collection plate. I just read a book about his third election. Instantly, Thomas E. Dewey conceded the race, FDR turned to his aide and said: “I still think he’s a son of a bitch.”
Nixon, when his wife died, fumed: “Clinton came to me for advice to save his ass and couldn’t even send a Cabinet member to Pat’s funeral?”
First prez to shake hands was the genius of the revolution who wrote the Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson had a passion for equality. July 4, 1801, he shocked a White House reception. Extending his hand, Tommy created the politicians’ greatest shtick — the handshake. Previously, guests bowed to the C-in-C.
Andrew Jackson, during the revolution, was the only one ever held as a prisoner of war . . . 1865, the other Andrew, Johnson, who succeeded after Lincoln’s assassination, was a runaway white slave. He’d been a bound apprentice . . . Savvy Dubya showed at Letterman’s camera-ready. All made up by his own people. No Green Room pit stop. Direct from the limo to the stage.
Lincoln’s missus, Mary Todd, inaugurated the first lady title . . . Ulysses S. Grant got 10,000 boxes of birthday cigars . . . Coolidge, who averaged four-hour work days and three-month vacations, was the only P sworn in by his justice of the peace/notary public father . . . Woodrow Wilson had golf balls painted black so he could play in the snow.
Warren Harding’s sister was one of DC’s first policewomen . . . Eisenhower’s pj’s had five stars on the lapels. Maybe so Mamie would know he’s in charge . . . Lyndon Johnson installed an Oval Office fountain so by pushing a button on his chair, Fresca could be dispensed . . . Chubby Taft was too fat to squeeze behind a steering wheel . . . Elder President Bush attended a CIA meeting in a red wig and false nose.
Gerald Ford, both P and VP, was never actually elected to either post . . . 1880. Theodore Roosevelt told a Harvard party: “I’ll marry Alice Hathaway Lee, even if she won’t have me.” Giving birth, she died four years later . . . Jimmy Carter was the first president to be born in a hospital . . . A 1940 book with 270 proofs of the Pythagorean theorem included one by mathematician James Garfield.
1922. Truman joined the KKK but resigned shortly demanding back his $10 initiation fee . . . 1814. When the Brits burned Washington, Dolley Madison escaped with two White House treasures — the Declaration of Independence and her parrot . . . Zachary Taylor, our 12th Commander-in-Chief, an el cheapo, refused an envelope bearing his Whig nomination because postage was due.
Draft dodger Grover Cleveland hired someone to serve in his place . . . Rutherford Hayes suffered from a phobia of going insane . . . John Tyler, 1841 to 1845, joined the Confederacy 20 years later and became the only president named a sworn enemy of the United States . . . 1853. Temperamental Franklin Pierce arrested for running down a woman with his horse.
Martin Van Buren kept a tiger, James Buchanan housed an elephant, John Quincy Adams maintained an alligator in the East Room.
Listen, whichever, whatever, whoever, we are the great and glorious United States of America. The people will have spoken — however they’ve spoken. And no matter what or who, the river people will always argue with the delta people, the blondes will argue with the brunettes, tall ones find differences with shorties, that’s how it goes. The privilege of voting is what makes us the greatest country on Earth.
No matter how it goes, may the winner clear up our congressional fraud, waste and abuse. And let him start with Newt Gingrich.