Got a call the other day urging me to vote for Candidate X, who is working for the people, not the special interests. This is intended to draw a contrast with Candidate Y, who apparently believes that the surest path to electoral victory is making speeches asking the people whether they wish to be kicked in the teeth or the hindquarters.
Rest assured: Whoever you are, Candidate X will be fighting for you, a term that makes it sound as if brisk bouts of fisticuffs break out the moment the Congressional Gavel comes down. Someone shouts, "Your constituency's mothers wear army boots," coats come off and it's on.
Then again, I've never gotten a campaign mailer that said, "I took a stab wound from a knife crudely fashioned from a quill pen while fighting for the widening of Hwy. 169," so it's possible "fighting" means lolling around in steam baths scratching each other's backs. Possible.
Well, all that ends this week, and I'm glad. The phone calls and ads just whipsaw you back and forth, but the worst are the yard signs. You'll be walking the dog, listening to the radio, confident in your choice of Veblen R. Stassen for county assessor, and then you see a sign for a different candidate. Your world is turned upside down. A neighbor has expressed a contrary preference! The mere existence of the sign makes you re-evaluate everything.
Then you drive around and see yard signs for other races, each one utterly convincing, each one canceling out the effect of the one you just saw. You realize why some people stake the signs on their grass: Since the power of the sign is so awesome it makes you vote for someone, you want your guy's sign to be the last one you see when you get home, so your vote isn't swayed by other signs.
But what if you see one on the way to the polling place, you ask? That's why I wear a blindfold and have my wife drive me.
