He may or may not get my vote

Okay, I’ve had enough. Put a fork in me, I’m done! It’s not even November and I’m so tired of the nonsense. Is it asking too much to have just one presidential election without all the drama?

It’s like a reoccurring bad dream and every four years it goes something like this ~~~~~~~~ (Pretend this is a movie so we can cue in the wiggly lines and fade back into the past.)

Two years before the primaries the political party who is currently not in office starts to crank up the drama machine. A group of political big-names, little-names and no-names start making noise about the current president saying he’s the worst thing to happen to America since the invention of the time share vacation rental or he’s (sorry I can’t say she because we’ve never had a woman elected president) to blame for everything including male baldness and the obesity problem.

For the first six months they’re content to play the “Poke the President” game. But as time goes by the group grows weary of this game and cranks it up a notch with the “Jab the Fellow Candidate” game. Within a matter of weeks they’re calling each other names they wouldn’t even think of using to describe the current president. In fact, if you take everything to heart that is said during the debates there isn’t a candidate among the group that is worth the time it takes to vote.

As the no-names fade away and the little-names hang on by a thread to a lost cause, we approach the party primaries. Now an even stronger game begins called “Whack-the-Leader.” It’s played much like the carnival game called “Whack-a-Mole.”  The final I-wish-I’d-never-heard-of-your-name candidates are busy running around in their little holes trying to make the other equally annoying people look like something no party would want. Then, when they poke their heads out of their respective holes, they get WHACKED by one of the we-never-heard-of-you-before groups.

You know the people who have never so much as had a cause worthy of supporting, suddenly find all these other like-minded friends and form a group with these impressive names such as: Our Country Deserves Better PAC and American Crossroads GPS and don’t forget the Earthjustice group. And if that isn’t amazing just in itself, they also somehow manage to find millions of dollars sitting around doing nothing (including helping the people who are negatively affected by the very premise for which they started their group) and spend millions of dollars running negative ads to destroy a person, malign a character or skew the facts to support their previously unknown and unheard of problem and unfortunately, their candidate.

Finally after 18 long arduous months of debates, debates about the debates and news shows discussing the debates we have a primary and the parties nominate their respective candidates.

Now the really confusing part begins.

All of the no-names, little-names and some of the big-names that didn’t get the party vote suddenly become BFFs (that’s text-talk Best Friends Forever) and jump on the campaign trail with a person who six months ago they didn’t think was even qualified to clean the swimming pool at the White House let alone sit in the Oval Office and hold the most powerful position in the free world.

But wait, there’s more! With this election we also get phone calls. OMG (more text stuff) do we get the phone calls. Survey groups and polling companies suddenly want to know our opinions about everything from which candidate would we vote for if the election were held today to what we think is the most important problem facing America.

Well I’ll tell you one thing; it’s not where Obama was born because you’re four years too late for that debate. And I also wouldn’t say the most important problem is jobs and unemployment because there are hundreds and thousands of people now gainfully employed… making phone calls.

If the election were held today I would vote for… no one! Yep, no one. For the first time since I became old enough to vote, I wouldn’t. I can’t believe anything Romney says because next week he’ll change his mind or his position, whichever comes first. Obama had all this energy and great ideas but within two years he sounded just like all the rest: blame it on your predecessor for the first 24 months; the other party in Washington for the next 12 months; and finally for the last 12 months, there just wasn’t enough time to get everything accomplished so re-elect me and I’ll make it happen.

They’ve got five months left to make me change my mind and it better not be on the phone or with negative campaign ads – no matter who pays for them. I may not be a powerful columnist in one of the top ten national newspapers but I do have the power of the black felt tip pen and I’ll be ready to use it one way or another on Election Day.

Oh, there’s a great web site for tracking ads, checking facts and keeping informed: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/track-presidential-campaign-ads-2012/