Forget the measles epidemic. Let’s concentrate instead on developing a vaccine that we could use to fill a syringe and plunge into the necks of the next well-intentioned Democrat who announces he or she is running for president.
It may be our only hope or they’ll just keep spreading, clogging up the coffee shops in New Hampshire and the VFW halls in South Carolina. We’ve already got what feels like every well-intentioned, opportunistic, egomaniacal, billionaire, septuagenarian, Democratic Socialist who wants to be the nominee next year.
I’ll admit at first it was endearing. Like looking at a too-small basket of kittens, all overflowing and yammering about free college and Medicare for all and green initiatives and other lofty notions.
“Look at ’em,” I murmured in admiration. “Look how the others are nudging the billionaire kitten who smells like burned coffee out of the basket. Isn’t that cute?”
And then all hell broke loose. They morphed into less kittens overcrowding a yarn basket and more “The Trouble With Tribbles” episode of Star Trek or, if you prefer, a darkened room littered with Legos waiting to puncture your stupid bare foot.
Every day a new candidate announces the formation of an exploratory committee, which we now know is the first step of The Descent Into Madness. Because, well, you’re the mayor of a small midwestern city. What’re you smoking bud? No, really. Share with the class.
I was telling some friends the other day I liked Sherrod Brown and the reaction—completely understandable—was a chorus of “what’s a Sherrod Brown?”
Yes, I’m part of the problem.
A few years ago, an author friend told me in a moment of bourbon-induced candor that he didn’t like teaching writing seminars because the awful truth is “it’s criminal to encourage ’em.”
Same applies here. We Dems need to heed the advice of my drunk friend and not encourage ’em. If you or someone you love tells you they want to run for the Democratic nomination for president, encourage them to funnel their talent and energy into something more useful, like becoming a blacksmith.
The old riddle: “How do you eat an elephant?” (One bite at a time) seems to have taken hold. But we’re never going to eat this elephant with roughly 3,500 candidates. All those bites from all those different directions might just make him meaner (as if). It’s the same way a Southern woman picks out her wedding silver: You start with your modern, edgy, “Ima make my own statement” but you know at the end of months of acrimony and agony, you’re going to cave and get the Chantilly by Gorham your mama told you to.
Chantilly in this case is Biden/Harris. Or maybe Warren/Booker or, less likely, Bernie/Beto. The Big Names will be left and the rest will have hind-teated themselves right back to obscurity, broke and tired.
Focus, y’all. This isn’t Brexit. We can’t just pretend to care about this. You’ll get ’em next time, Sherrod. Just kidding; no you won’t.