Karl Klockars

Remember a few months ago when the general prevailing tone around politics for the time being was the “let’s be friendly and speak in niceties and generally be cool with each other” kinda thing?  Didn’t last long, did it?  Fine with me.  We’re in the home stretch now, and hopefully the gloves are off.

I mean, this is a hell of a gig.  An important job.  And a tough one.  So do I want a touchy-feely kind of happy-funtime president?  No.  I want a back-and-forth.  I want some anger and tension.  I want negative advertisement.

And truth be told…I kinda want my presidential candidates to be an asshole some of the time.

Okay, maybe that’s not the best way of putting things.  I don’t want a president who is going to kick sand in my face, who’s going to kidney-punch me and tell me he’s just kidding around.  I don’t want a president who’s going to pull the chair out from under me, ha ha, just kidding, why you so mad?  Why you cry?

But I do want a president that’s going to fight.  I want a guy that’s going to get mad.  A person who is slow to anger, surely – but someone that’s not incapable of getting pissed off.  And sometimes I want to see it.  I remember thinking at the beginning of the Obama and McCain campaigns that they weren’t going to be able to keep this nicey-nicey stuff up for long.  Thankfully, it seems the dam is about to burst.  (And just in time for the debates!)

"I say. How dare he. Pistols at dawn!"

Sure, it was a nice thought to try to be best buddies throughout this whole presidential race.  But this is serious shit.  Now that it’s getting down to the wire, we’re going to start seeing some darts being thrown.  And it’s good to see.  I don’t really believe it when the two sides keep complimenting each other.  These guys are head to head for the most important job in the world, and we’re supposed to believe that behind the scenes they’re saying things like “That fine McCain gentleman is entitled to his opinion on the economy, but I do say, good sir – I believe he’s in error.”

Or do you think that on the other side, they’re saying “Oh dear, it’s another advertisment from that upstanding Obama individual.  I do wish he’d refrain from such unseemingly actions upon his behalf.”  Good golly, no.  The problem is that I, and presumably others, don’t react well to that kind of passive agressive broad slashes.  I like surgical, pointed, direct strikes.  Not the half-hearted stuff the campaigns throw out every day.  There’s no heart in that.  No soul.  No passion.  But behind those flags and curtains, those two are M-Fing each other as often as the day is long.  We just never get to see it.

I’ve written earlier about the fact that one of the main strengths of the Obama campaign is that he can speak like he believes what he says.  He projects his message in a way that even Hollywood professionals can’t get arsed to do during Oscar telecasts.  And now, after having said all that, I’d like him to lead the charge in saying exactly what he’s thinking.

"But it's satire, you rubes! Satire! Okay, Hillary made us do it."

Because when stuff crosses the wires about things like the Too Close to a Lobbyist story, the New Yorker cover, the scurrilous things that people start saying about your wife and your first wife and your children – I’d want to start somethin’.  (This is probably why I’m never going to be considered for a candidacy of a major party.  There’s some fringe group out there that’ll have me, though.)

And when I say “start somethin’,” I don’t mean fisticuffs.  I don’t want my two opponents to go out into the alley and start taking whacks at each other physically.  But verbally?  Do I want someone to have the fortitude to simply call “bullshit?”  Literally?  Oh, yeah.

I get a lot of press releases from both candidates in my email.  Just once, once, I’d like the content of one to be as follows:  “What a bunch of horseshit!  Anyone that believes the charges made by my opponent has got to be a damned fool.  If brains was gunpowder, he couldn’t light a match.  (This euphamism inserted for our fine West Virginia bretheren.)  In conclusion, we refer you back to our first sentence.  Accent on horseshit.”

That would be nice to see. I remember when the whole Fox News “Terrorist Fist Jab” crossed my radar and I wrote a rebutting press release in 2.3 seconds.  “You’ve got to be flippin’ kidding me.  Signed, the Obama Campaign.”

"We'll return to the debates right after this, on MSNBC."

It’s interesting to watch the fine line that you have to traverse in the political world.  Books could be written all about how to talk some serious shit while keeping a smile on your face and seeming like you’re trying to do the other guy a favor.  Wouldn’t it be spectacular at the next debate to have both sides screaming at each other like it’s a Springer show?

And both sides could bring their posse.  Admittedly, McCain’s would be way bigger (and far better armed, despite Obama’s souf side cred) but the left can be a tenacious, dastardly group.  It’d be nice to see a touch of humanity squeak out from underneath those varnished, well-shellacked veneers that have been polished to a fine gleam in front of the thousands of voters and millions of TV viewers.  Then we could really see what’s up with the bomb-throwing agitator on the left, and the military-machine heritage soldier on the right.  (I bet McCain could kick my ass even with his limited-mobility arms.)

It sure would be hard to say that we didn’t know just about everything about the candidates then, wouldn’t it?  At least we’d know how bad each one wanted it.