Remember the grand old days of high school?  The first few days of a new school year; the new clothes, the new folders, unchewed pencils, pens with caps still on them.  You spend a couple of days learning the names of the new kids and determining who in class is cute this year.  Maybe you’ll actually get up the nerve to finally ask out that one girl or guy.  After a couple weeks of settling in all of a sudden out come the fliers stuck to the wall bearing info that is soon reiterated over the PA during morning announcements.

*crackle*  *hummm*  *bzzzz*  *crackle* “Attention students, it’s time for school elections.  If you are interested in running for student body president, vice-president, treasurer or secretary, please sign up in the office.”  Then they mention there’s also an election for representatives for school senate or whatever it is that each school calls the group of kids not popular enough to run for a bigger office.  Then everyone says the pledge of allegiance and sits down.

Who runs for office?  It seems like the popular -and pretty- girl always signs up.  Sometimes she’s a cheerleader, usually a pre-requisite is that she at least be a homecoming queen candidate.  The popular boy might run, unless he’s a football player in which he won’t have time for another extra-curricular.  There’s always a smart girl who signs up and could actually do a good job but, unfortunately, isn’t popular enough.  And inevitably there’s some dorky boy who is out to make a difference, to bring fairness to the school, show ‘em geeks are ok and you don’t have to be a jock…he always loses.

So then what happens?  Let’s see, there’s the ubiquitous hand painted posters in the hallway,  sucker sticks bearing a label with “Vote for Janice” printed on them, time wasted in class allowing kids to make speeches to other kids for classroom rep, and even more valuable class time wasted in a ridiculous school assembly where each kid that wants to be president stands up, gets too close to the mic, creates feedback, takes a step back and then proceeds on a diatribe about how he or she is gonna make the school better.

Yup, outstanding issues like more pizza and less fruit in the cafeteria.  More recess, less study hall.  A pizza party in each classroom.  A new soda machine outside the library.  A “Throw-A-Cream-Pie-At-The-Principal”  contest to get money for new basketballs that aren’t flat during recess.  And if they are really gullible, making the teachers assign less homework!

Does all this ring a bell?  It does for me, I remember parts of these scenarios very clearly.

Wait a second….

Barack Obama wasn’t in my class.  And Mike Huckabee certainly wasn’t pledging to get me more pizza for lunch.

Some of my memories are blurring, somehow mixing in with images from the current presidential campaign.  How can that be?

I’ll tell ya how.  Because the processes are ONE IN THE SAME!!

If you sit back and think about it, can’t you match the Democratic and Republican candidates up with kids that ran for office in your school?  And more importantly (and depressingly) aren’t their speeches similarly steeped in fantastic nature?  Heck, they even pick on and snipe at each other during debates, just like kids in a school hallway between classes.

Now who’s gonna believe that Hillary Clinton will really get you more recess and less study hall?  Yet the American people eagerly jump up and down and wave signs when she tells us how she’s gonna fix ______.     <-  whatever ya want, fill in the blank.  Oh she’s the best, she’s gonna save our school!

*chuckle* –  slight diversion: isn’t it funny how all these candidates, once they become president, cause they all say “When I’m president”, are gonna wave some magic wand and fix all the problems in the country….without any help, AND in the first one hundred days.  Yet, if it doesn’t work out they can all say “well, I tried, but so and so, or this Senator and that committee stood in the way and didn’t want to help me help the American people.  There’s always an excuse and always a scapegoat, they just take turns. 

Anyway….

The tripe and basketful of promises spewed from a candidate’s mouth these days doesn’t have to come true…at least not at this point in the election process.  It doesn’t even have to be real!  They can say whatever the heck they want:

“I’ll bring the troops home in a year”

“Well, I don’t why he’s waiting so long, I’ll have them home in 9 months”

“You guys are making the American families wait too long.  In order to get us out of the war I’ll have the troops home by next week…with pizza parties for their battalions and Dick Cheney in a dunk tank!”

It just doesn’t matter cause they’ll make up all kinds of new stuff to promise us once we get it whittled down to 2 candidates.  Dare to bring out old video showing them talking about a, now current, topic and you’ll get “Now, see here, you’re looking at the past, the American voter wants to know what we’re gonna do now, how are we going to help them now.”

Spin, Spin, Spin

Who is REALLY voting on a candidate’s issues at this point?  All the states with primaries so far certainly are not.  They’re all voting in a popularity contest, just like Ohio soon will and just like you did when you were in high school.  We don’t know who can do what or when they can do it.  We vote for who’s cutest, or who wears a suit the best.

Change!  The American public wants change!  That’s what they keep telling us that we’re seemingly telling them.  I’ve heard that word more times in this campaign than I did when my 2 kids were in diapers.  It’s the big buzzword, it’s all we hear,  so it’s all they spew back at us as we gather to hear their enlightened words they robotically repeat for the 23rd time this week.  “You want more pizza, I’ll give you more pizza, we’ll CHANGE the school menu.  I’ll even throw in tater tots!!  And if, I mean when, you make me president of the United States I’ll get a soda machine in every classroom within my first 100 days!”  The crowd goes wild, the kids all mark their X next to a candidate’s name and by the end of the day the principal comes over the PA:   “Attention students, here are the results of the student body election.  I’d like to announce that John Edwards has won the race for student body president, Rudy Giuliani is vice-president, Ron Paul is treasurer and John McCain is secretary.  *crackle* *buzz* Oh, and would Mitt Romney come to the office please, your mom dropped off some more hairspray for you.”

Go ahead…tell me I’m wrong.