I've finally realized what the election is really all about. The candidates aren't running for president, they're running to be our parents. In a nation of fractured families with a high divorce rate and chronically absentee parents, people are desperate for someone to fill the role of mommy and daddy, and politicians are eager to play that part. The problem is that most of them are just as dysfunctional as the real parents who screwed up their kids in the first place.
Looking at the candidates it becomes clear that they fit into certain patterns of parenting styles which you can see on a daily basis in your friends, your neighbors, and the families whose kids go to school with yours.
Hillary Clinton is the bitter divorcee who blames her kids for her marriage failing and her life not being what she had hoped and ends up being both neglectful and overly controlling at the same time. Plus she's got a creepy new boyfriend who always winks at the kids and pats them on the ass when she's not looking. I see her as Joan Crawford in a sort of combination of Mildred Pierce and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane.
John Edwards is the divorced dad who only has visitation one weekend a month and spends all of that time buying his kids toys and taking them to the corporate skybox for a baseball game in a desperate attempt to buy their friendship. I see him as Jim Carrey in Liar, Liar, but without the redemptive turnaround at the end. Or maybe that came when he dropped out.
Barack Obama is the dad who likes to read to the kids but takes himself overly seriously and tries a little too hard to educate rather than entertain, so at bedtime he drags out Das Kapital rather than Harry Potter, but it does put them to sleep pretty quickly.
John McCain is the dad whose kids are off to college or the military and he sends them a long letter every week reminding them to check the oil in their car and wear warm socks. Then he goes off for a round of golf and some drinks a the club.
Article comments
1 - Baronius
Hilarious.
2 - Lee Richards
Even though they're not running, wouldn't you like to analyze Bush, Cheney, Gore and Bill Clinton, just for laughs?
3 - John
"Ron Paul is the crazy old uncle who lives in a trailer and doesn't have any kids. Every afternoon he goes down to the local university with his Bible and rails at the students to end their sinful ways and accept Jesus."
Ron Paul is as square as they come, but he respects everyones right to act as please provided it doesn't impose on anyone else. Ditto his feelings on religion.
He's also celebrating his 51st anniversary today, and he has a few kids and grandkids.
Cute attempt at satire though.
4 - Chilli
An interesting exercise, except that it starts to seem like a smear job when you get to Ron Paul. "unmarried uncle" clearly implies "gay" (which he isn't -- he and his wife are celebrating their 51st wedding anniversary today) and Bible thumping is about as far from Paul's style of Christianity is it comes.
Paul quit his job in Congress the first time around, to order to go back to medicine so that he'd have enough cash to put his kids through college on his own dime. He put five though college, three through medical school, and he didn't except a penny in taxpayer subsidy along the way. That sounds a bit more like the Obama characterization: the parent who dotes on his kids, but takes things a little too seriously.
5 - Mike
If Ron Paul had done more bible thumping and waving it in everyones' face, he would have knocked Huckleberry out in Iowa.
6 - Baritone
Good article Dave.
I think I get where you're coming from. Of course, I knew that your having the temerity to "smear" Ron Paul would get a # of incensed responses. I don't think characterizing him as you did suggests that he's gay. A pedophile maybe, but not gay.
I think we do look to not only politicians, but also entertainers - anyone famous for that matter - for some kind of guidance, some pearls of wisdom, parental or otherwise, perhaps in the belief that fame in and of itself implies sagacity, which I took as a main point of your article.
(Can you imagine looking to the likes of Britney Spears for even a shred of wisdom about how to live one's life? What could she possibly have to impart to this country's youth other than being a glaring example of how NOT to live?)
But we do, I suppose, want a sense of reassurance especially from our politicos - that the city, state, country or whatever is in competent, trustworthy hands, that mom and pop have everything under control. Of course, we give it the lie when we, in almost the same breath, claim that all politicians are crooks. But usually most of us find at least one candidate or office holder who we believe to be the exception to the rule, that one person, that "Mr. Smith" we can and do trust.
Unfortunately, they all too often let us down. Perhaps we expect too much. They are only human after all - well, most of them are.
B-tone
7 - Clavos
Very funny, Dave.
And the comment thread is proving beyond a doubt (if we ever had any) that the Paulies are totally without a sense of humor.
8 - Dr Dreadful
With the notable exception of Irene.
9 - Baronius
How about Fred Thompson, as a late-in-life dad who's too tired to track down the kid, let alone discipline him. That's the kid who always terrorizes the neighbors' cats.
10 - Revancheur
I have to second the comment on the humorlessness of the PaulBots. How can they not get that what's presented here obviously isn't how the candidates really are, but the analog of their campaign styles as parenting skills. Baffling.
JDM
11 - Matthew T. Sussman
Wrong. All wrong. Mike Huckabee is the dad from American Beauty.
12 - Dave Nalle
Dr. D., Irene hasn't chimed in here yet, but I do hold out hope for her.
As for Thompson, I started writing this after he had already dropped out, but obviously finished it before Rudy and Edwards had dropped. It took a couple of days to polish, but I left them in anyway.
Passing up Thompson wasn't that troubling, but I now realize that I missed my chance to rag on Kucinich.
Dave
13 - Baritone
Kucinich - a mix of Paulie Shore, a young Bronson Pinchot (Balkie,) and just a smidge of Don Knox.
If that's at all accurate, though, how did he wind up with that wife of his?
Hooooodoogies!
B-tone
14 - P.Marlowe
Good post there Davey...
Marlowe