Voting for a goalie doesn't make me a bad person.

November 4, 2004
Filed under:"H" for "Toy"

My vote counts, everyone's vote counts. I learned this the hard way.

For all that's happened in the last 4 years, and what happened this week…

You can blame me.

I am solely responsible for putting W in el casa blanca, and I'll tell you why.

The last election came at a time when the Columbus B1ue J@ckets were heavily advertising their expansion NHL team. They ran a series of ads touting their starting goaltender, Ron Tugnutt (giggle childishly at name here), as a presidential candidate. The ads were hilarious, with Tuggers in his red, white, and blue uniform (actual team colors), his goalie stuff on, and his helmet tipped back, saying shit like, \”I'm only 30, I'm Canadian, but I want to be your President.\”

At the same time, I was finishing up my degree at UCD and one of my best buds was a scrawny, chain-smoking, cool-as-hell, Brit that I called, \”Limey.\” He was a classic, and to this day, everyone that's ever known him loves him. We were outside smoking between classes and discussing the upcoming election with the usual malaise that most of the 'educated' tend towards on that subject, when I mentioned that I'd love the opportunity to vote for someone I actually liked instead of the usual lesser-of-the-two-evils. Limey piped up and said that, if elected, he'd do everything he could to make our country a better place, even though he's British, 28 years old, and pumps a fair amount of recreational pharmeceuticals into his bloodstream. I told him that sounded good enough, and that I would vote for him.

I had yet to figure out the whole absentee-voting thing, so when Election Day came, I was forced to actually go to the Voting location, and punch my li'l card for my choices. I'd done some research on the Senators and the local officials and all of that mess, so I thought I was prepared.

Unfortunately, me and my best friend, Shithead, had tied one on a little too tight the night before, and I'm pretty sure I was still drunk.

When the moment of truth came, for the CEO and his partner of our great nation, I wrote in my choices.

I giggled when I did it, and almost everyone that I told this to thought that my choices were funny as hell. It was a kind of \”Fuck you\” to the whole Electoral System, and I was pleased with my rebellion against it.

Then came the vote counting, and the hanging chads, all that Florida bullshit, and the idea that for everyone who wrote some bullshit in (or voted Nader), their votes would have been the difference in the race between the 'big two'. I started to feel mildly shameful, but hey, note to self: Avoid Drunken Voting. Lesson learned.

I didn't really feel true shame until I was perusing the B1ue J@ckets web site the other day and, amidst all the election hoopla, they mentioned the ad campaign for Tuggers years ago, and the fact that he received 5 votes for President.

I don't think it's necessary to say that I know who one of those votes was. I haven't found any stats on scrawny Brits for VP, and I don't want to.

I was a good boy this year though. I researched voting records, looked at the candidates' stances on the issues, and voted my conscience.

It wasn't easy, I'll tell ya.

  • On one hand, my fat, Texan, family members are actually friends and neighbors with a certain candidate's family.
  • On the other hand, one of the candidates married into the family of my favorite condiment.
  • On one hand, one candidate is fond of preaching about 'values' and 'morals' and it makes me physically ill while simultaneously making me giggle childishly when he speaks.
  • On the other hand, I got to see the other candidate score a goal in an exhibition hockey game.

    Hmmmmmmm.

    (chin cupped in palm of hand)

    DOUBLE Hmmmmmm.

    (pensive stroking of beard)

    These are my choices, eh?

    Determined to back someone with an actual chance at this whole President deal, I wrote in Dusty Scott, even though his monkeyass doesn't play hockey.

    I listened to the radio continually spouting it's coverage about what tipped the scales this year, and I kept hearing that it was about \”values\” and the fact that W shares these voters' \”values.\” The radio guy made note that this is most likely two BIG issues, Gay Marriage and Abortion.

    Are you fucking kidding me?

    *Ahem* (warm up stretches)

    –Begin Bitch–

    The Presidency is a fucking job. The President is not my 'moral' leader, nor is he my hero, or my goddam role model. His job is to make this country, nay, this world, a better place. If I have to hear one more fucking time about how he is doing this by \”protecting the sanctity of marriage\” I'm going to get one of his goddam daughters drunk, knock 'er up, get hitched, and then leave her, very publicly, for a man. A big, hairy, tattooed, biker thug that wears a T-shrit that reads \”Think you're tough? I used to FUCK guys like you in PRISON.\” His name'll be \”Chains\” and I'll wear the dress at the wedding… for obvious reasons.

    –End Bitch–

    I've got a friend in Iraq, and while I worry about him and question our country's involvement there, he volunteered for this. He signed up willingly to possibly DIE for his country, and I respect him, as well as all soldiers, for this more than they will ever know, for I am far too big of a pussy to ever do such a thing.

    A friend of mine is a brown person from a Middle Eastern country, and I've had to vouch for his character because of a ridiculous law that says he could be 'detained' simply for a suspicion. He wasn't, but that was only because of me and two of his other friends. I won't speculate on the fact that myself, and his other friends, are all WHITE and UPPER-MIDDLE-CLASS. Oh, did I mention we're WHITE? And all of us, my brown friend included, make DECENT MONEY, and have respectable jobs like, LAWYER and ACCOUNTANT and SOFTWARE DEVELOPER. Fuck that.

    I was talking on the phone to a good friend the other week, who's not necessarily quiet about his views on anything, and he had a great thought about how, if one's life is better or worse than it was 4 years ago, it's probably not because of W, it's probably because of whatever they've done or not done. After all, it is their life to live, and no one else's.

    I really thought about that because it is highly unlikely that I will ever A) have to get an abortion, 2) marry \”Chains\”, the man of my dreams, or 3) be asked to kill people for my country.

    My life is pretty damn good right now, and I did a lot of this all on my own.

    Thing is, that's just me. And my life isn't just about me. It's about my buddy in Iraq, who's so goddam proud to be there that he is beaming in every picture. It's about my brown friend, who is proud to be an American, but feels a little flustered knowing that he is considered so different from his friends of comparable class, just because his skin is brown and he is from a hated country. It's about the Mom, who is happy with her Life Partner, yet who doesn't enjoy any of the privileges of a 23-year committed relationship, one of which is her healthcare coverage for my 7-year old little brother (not her biological son, but LifePartners' and a Frozen Pop).

    Know what though? All these people are still happy, and they are doing for themselves the best that they can. Dog Bless 'em, because that's all ANY of us can ever do.

    A dumbass fuckin' TEXAN in El Casa Blanca isn't going to change that.