May I Rant?

Mr. Politician:

It's not enough that I have to endure your chubby face in my mailbox EVERY day of the week, and your commercials on TV all day long, and you and your "helpers" ringing my door bell all day thereby setting my dog into a frenzy and potentially waking my child only to hand me another copy of the chubby face emblazoned flyer, xeroxed copies of tear stained letters from your wives, pictures of your poor kids and their fake smiles, you are now calling my home at all hours of the day. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!!! It's obvious that you know we don't want to talk to you. You hide behind "private caller" & "1800 service" so, in turn, we don't answer. But that's not enough for you- oh no. You or one of your family members, church friends, or dog sitters leaves a message- not a live one mind you, but a recording. You don't even WANT to talk to us. You just want yet another opportunity to force yourselves on us. If I had a question for you or was even remotely interested in what you have to say- I can't have any sort of exchange with you. So here's what I have to offer in return- I'm not voting. There I said it- I'm usually a very patriotic, everyone should vote kind of person, but now I'm not going to vote for any of you on August 7th. (They always say every vote counts- what would happen if NONE of us went? I mean what if literally NO ONE showed up. How funny would that be? Who would be the winner? I'm just curious, not trying to start a movement or anything.) There is also supposedly a demographic of people that chronically doesn't vote. Although I usually do, I think I'm still in the age category that all of you are supposed to be reaching out to, to draw in to really sway your campaign. All you've done for me is tick me off. You'll find that our generation responds quite well to a Sesame Street type approach. Everyone gets about 15 seconds. Set your platform to music and come up with a little song and dance to accompany it. No need for a lot fluff- just the bare facts. Quite frankly singing "The Ladybug Picnic" gets me to the count of 12 every time and I can still remember most of the words to Rubber Ducky from 25 years ago- I can't remember any of YOUR names or what the difference is between any of you from any of the 25 times I've had to avoid you TODAY.

One common thread among all of our local candidates is street repair/beautification. For the past 3 months all you've done is make the place look like a city dump. At every entrance to every neighborhood and on every street corner there are approximately 50-12 campaign signs. As if I'm going to be driving along and say "well, I've seen 83 signs for this guy but only 81 for that one, guy number one must really have his stuff together. I'm gonna go with HIM. He's got great cardboard sign placement- he'll take our community places." Although it's almost as annoying, just have your friends put ONE sign in their yards- bombarding us as we leave our neighborhood doesn't help your cause.

I had to get this out because it was just building up and I'm scared people are going be greeted at my door with a cordless phone and a pile of glossy card stock being hurled out past them into oncoming traffic if I get one more UNSOLICITED call (I guess y'all conveniently kept yourselves out of the candidates for the "do not call list") or stack of junk mail (honestly, how many copies of the same advertisement do you think I need filling up my already overflowing garbage can). At least with telemarketers it's a real person you can either ask not to call back or get the satisfaction of hanging up on. I'm scared of where this obsessive campaigning trail is leading. Next summer am I going to open my front door to find a cardboard cut out of you and your family standing there with a recording of where you go to church and what your opponent did behind closed doors?

I think a nice independent publication produced a week or two before the election and mailed to each registered voter would be a good start. Everyone who has their hat in the race gets a page- double spaced, size 12 Times New Roman font. You may have one section to list factual qualifications you have for the job (sorry, the fact that you are a member of a church or the NRA does not count- both are required just to maintain a residence below the Mason Dixon line)and in the second section you may list goals you have for your term- be careful here, this will be a legally binding document. Note there's not much room here to tell me anything about your opponents or other public officials that have "gotten in the way" of you doing your job. We'll go with Mr. Rogers here- don't worry about your neighbor, you just worry about you. I haven't decided yet if I want to see your face printed on your page or not. This will be your only contact with the voters other than any public debates you wish to take part in, phone calls you wish to answer AT YOUR RESIDENCE (your phone number WILL be listed on your page), and I'll allow a final list of candidates to be published in all newspapers a few months before the election. Still interested in running?

Thank you for your time,
Maggie

PS- sorry if I've offended any of my regular readers, but you did choose to read the whole thing and it wasn't addressed to any of you!