This may sound a bit trite and un-American at election time, but where in the world is Dan Rather when we need him? Grand marshaling the culmination of campaign races across the country, Rather was the embodiment of election night returns. We voters did our thing, visiting polling places or mailing in absentee ballots because if “you don’t vote, you don’t get to whine,” but – love him or loathe him – the real question was:” What time does Dan hit the airwaves?” For me, Dan Rather was the Dick Clark of Election Night.
“No question now,” Rather affirmed in 2004. “Kerry’s rapidly reaching the point where he’s got his back to the wall, his shirttails on fire and the bill collector’s at the door.”
After Rather’s abrupt departure from CBS, we knew that, without the silver-tongued Texan, broadcast news coverage of the election would be lots tamer. His endless supply of colloquialisms – or “Rather-isms” as they came to be known – ramped up what would otherwise be some pretty dry reporting of returns. Never again would a race be “as tight as the rusted lug nuts on a ’55 Ford.” No more prattling on about a “ding-dong, knock-down, get-up race.” Consequently, this year my patience with negative ad campaigns and privacy-invading phone calls ran “thin as November ice.” Yep, this election season became “a too-small bathing suit on a too-long ride home from the beach.”
It got so bad I would rather have “walked through the furnace in a gasoline suit” than answer the phone. The other day I picked up to hear, “Hello! This is a deficit crisis alert!” Is it just me, or does this kind of announcement seem “shakier than cafeteria Jell-O?” It appeared pretty dismal to me, yet the chipper (recorded) male voice sounded like he was calling to say I’d just won a half-off dinner at Denny’s.
Politicians grew more brazen by the day. In a year when polls showed that poisonous snakes have a higher approval rating than Congress, it got darned ugly. I was scared to go out to pick up the morning paper for fear a politician would be hiding behind the bushes, ready to jump out and accost me with campaign promises because some of these races were getting “hotter than a Laredo parking lot.”
All of the mudslinging and downright weird campaigns carried on over the past several months were completely mind-blowing, and we would have been “likelier to see a hippopotamus run through the room” as catch sight of a clean campaign. I’m not talking about just here in our neck of the woods, either. No-siree-Bob! Compared to other places, politics were gracious in the Golden State or, as Rather fondly referred to California – the “Big Burrito.”
One goofy race transpired in Texas where “Kinky” Friedman, an Independent, ran for governor. Kinky, who prudently planned to keep his day job as a musician, had a couple of catchy campaign slogans including “Why the Hell Not?” and “How Hard Can It Be?” Kinky freely admitted he is “full of BS” while the other candidates “try to hide it.” Kinky had enough campaign accouterments “to give aspirin a headache,” including Kinky’s Private Stock Salsa, classic thong, camisoles and of course tanks and T-shirts – featuring over 150 different designs. Kinky would be hard pressed to run Texas what with churning out all that tasteful, and unquestionably stylish, paraphernalia. I mean, it was enough to make somebody’s “fingernails sweat.”
Regardless of whether Texas “got Kinky,” still more states proved that politics is not for wussies:
Strolling through a small Alaska town recently, my spouse and I noticed political posters taped to the windows of several businesses. Closer inspection revealed a blurry “campaign” photo of a middle-aged male attired in a white tank top or maybe his undershirt – who knows! New to politics, the candidate ran for “change” – a popular theme this election year – but the so-called “change” was only in personality. That race is already over and, having “beaten his opponent like a rented mule,” Mr. Undershirt candidly confessed during a post-election interview, “I didn’t run on a platform and I don’t have an agenda, so there will be a bit of a learning curve … ” I can almost hear Dan begging to “turn down the lights, the party just got wilder.”
In Colorado, on the Grand Scale of Political Sleaze the governor’s race was running about a ten-plus. I thought I’d escaped California’s negative ads for the clear, clean air of the Rocky Mountains, but Ohhhhh, Mama! Back there the race was “hotter than the devil’s anvil.”
Candidate Number One (standing at the rear portion of a horse): “Whooeee, politics smell pretty bad back here!”
Meanwhile, Candidate Number Two’s camp was extolling the contemptible virtues of Candidate Number One, whom they nefariously referred to as “Both Ways Bob.” I mean, if you made that claim in California, it would have brought with it a whole new spectrum of implications, but if you think I’m going there, you are crazy.
Hard as it is, let’s hang in there, folks, because while politics are about as “hot and squalid as a New York elevator in August,” this year’s stint of campaign over-zealousness is just about history. But we will sorely miss Dan Rather on Election Night because most of us won’t know “whether to wind our watch or bark at the moon.” Maybe we should rally around and initiate a write-in campaign to get CBS to trot old Dan back out on election night for a bit of much-needed levity.
I wouldn’t go so far as to “bet the trailer money yet,” but that’s a campaign I could support.
Gale Hammond is a 23-year Morgan Hill resident. Reach her at
Ga*********@ao*.com
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