Loving politics, and comic theater…

Apparently it’s the silly season…

For years, in car racing the “silly season” referred to the end of the racing season when drivers were leaving teams, looking for new teams, for new sponsorship deals… a time of rumor… of deal making…

At the risk of making fun of what is truly important, an election in which our legislators who will guide this country for the next several years are elected… I need to rant and rave…

I am reminded of an old story, a joke, but with a ring of truth…

Many years ago, in Texas, a much younger Lyndon Johnson was running for office… The story varies… in some instances he is running for a county judge. In other versions it is for an assembly seat. In all cases the race is a bare knuckles political fight, apparently once common in local Texas elections…

Texas politics and politicians have a reputation… not a good reputation… Political columnist Molly Ivans once stated that one Texas congressman “was so dumb that if he were any dumber, you'd have to water him twice a day” (this is not to say Lyndon Johnson was dumb, only that Texas politics have a reputation…) Molly found much to comment on in Texas politics…

So the story about Lyndon Johnson says that he asks a friend, his campaign manager to start a rumor that his “Distinguished opponent has had cardinal relations with his barn yard sows…”

According to the story, his friend, his campaign manager asked “do you expect the public to believe that he is a pig F%#ker????” to which Johnson said “no, but I want to hear the bastard deny it”

We are now experiencing an election which includes a divergent political movement… the Tea Party movement… Lead by the unknowing, the uneducated… making pronouncements… about history… (I am a historian… I know history… they don’t, and are getting it wrong…) The Tea Party thinks they are reliving our anti tax history, when patriots dumped English tea into Boston Harbor… One of their national leaders believes she can see Russia from her home near Anchorage, or was it the Governor’s mansion in Juneau, either many thousand miles away from the international boarder…

So their most successful national candidate… Christine O'Donnell, republican candidate for the Roade Island senate seat is now denying that she is … A Witch… Pointy hats, broom sticks, pentagrams and such, a witch…

Lyndon Johnson would be laughing his A@* off…

The back story is that in college, many years ago, she experimented with Wiccaism… As she says, she "began my first night touring a satanic altar. Blood on the altar and everything." But she isn’t a witch… that’s her story… (personally, I will go on record as saying “I strongly believe that Christine O'Donnell has never had a sexual relationship with a pig”… really. I believe…)

The last time witches in New England had national exposure, we were dunking folks in ponds, burning folks at the stake, and generally getting hysterical… maybe not this time… please…

It doesn’t help that the Tea Party is generally to the far right of center, a place shared by conservative Christians… not Wiccans… maybe the polar opposite of Wiccans… might that affect her political ambitions… no more than any number of conservative Christian evangelical preachers who are found to have relationships with gay prostitutes (this is not a reflection on gay prostitutes, but on conservative evangelist preachers…)

The sad part is I am probably more conservative than most… but can’t stand the Republican party and their Tea Party friends… I don’t find them conservative, just angry, cheap, and stupid… I would rather spend time in a Golden Gate park meadow with 300,000 of my closest friends… Some who might be liberals… very liberal…

I want to restart the Bull Moose party of Teddy Roosevelt… a real, constructive conservative movement… I believe Teddy was the best modern conservative to hold national office… really…

We can learn from history… but likely we won’t.