New voters and the kicking of Junior's ass

By DUNCAN MOENCH

"Kerry's going to win! Kerry kicked his ass! Kerry smashed Bush into tiny little pieces and he tossed him into the dust bin of history. We're going to win! We've slain the neo-con dragon!"

This incident illustrates the need to listen to the words of the great Steve Albini. As a society we need to invent some kind of new number order. The new number would illustrate the fact that Bush said "diversion" so many times my girlfriend and I had to change the rules of the drinking game we were playing and became completely plastered as a result.

Friday afternoon after many an Excedrin, I realized the problem with the revelatory liberal calls I received the night before. The problem is this: Bush almost always looks this stupid and it doesn't seem to hurt him with many voters.

With Karl Rove's help, Bush successfully portrays himself as 'of ' working class America. And working class America is not impressed by the 50 point Scrabble words John Kerry can't resist using. Does this matter? And will it matter on Nov. 2? To answer these questions we must first answer who actually votes in our country, let's go to the chalkboard and find out ...

A brief political history lesson will commence in FOUR, THREE, TWO, ONE …

What portion of America actually bothers to vote in Presidential elections? Roughly 50 percent of the eligible voting population. That's right, only half the country votes.

Why, you ask? The reasons are complicated, but it seems safe to say that many people don't vote because they feel that system we call 'democratic' does not represent them. They feel the choices being offered are choices not worthwhile enough to warrant participation.

America routinely has the lowest voter turnout of any modern industrialized democracy. The "non-voter" phenomenon is particularly pernicious amongst low and lower-middle income Americans – what in the old days used to be called working class. Americans making less than $25,000 a year voted only 43 percent of the time in 2000, whereas those making $75,000 or more voted 75 percent of the time.

Thank you Political Historian D for getting us up to speed. If you would like to verify American's dismal voter turnout figures, you can do so at www.fairvote.org.

The tendency of working class and poor Americans to not vote can be seen here.

With this established, we can proceed. The Brookings Institute predicts voter turnout may actually reach a record high this year (to be a record, all it would take is a turnout of 64 percent). Wealthy and upper middle class Americans are already voting in very high numbers, the new voters in this year's election will be mostly working class and poor Americans who in the past have tuned out. The candidate who wins the favor of this population will win the election.

Now, back to the debates.

The Democratic leadership should anticipate that when Bush comes across as not knowing what the hell he's talking about, a sizable portion of the American electorate says, "Right on."

Right on!!? RIGHT ON – he doesn't know what the hell he's saying?!! Who are these people? Who thinks like this?? Just because you think he'd be fun to have a beer with doesn't mean he'd be a good president. Some people are hopeless. We can't go around appealing to lowest common denominator, the frustrated liberal says.

If you want to see Junior go down in flames, the key question you must answer is does the current Democratic leadership really care about reaching out to working class America, or are they content to fight with the Republicans for the wealthy portion of the population that currently votes in this country? What could Kerry do to steal some of Karl Rove's ammunition and portray himself as 'of ' the working class?

Stop giving your candidate Botox injections and allowing him to be photographed wind-surfing and snowboarding. Why not just have him pose for photos eating caviar while holding a crochet mallet?!! – I think we all agree with Furious D, for the good of mankind, that stuff needs to stop.

Does that mean we have to start stumbling through our speeches, misspelling words to elementary schools kids, chopping wood at our phony ranches and going target shooting with a six pack of Old Milwaukee?, your condescending voice asks.

No, you don't have to do all those things, although chopping wood wouldn't hurt. You just have to start speaking to some issues that actually concern working class Americans – perhaps the creation of federal 'living wage'? If you can speak about economic issues in a way that shows you understand how hard it is to make ends meet in this country, people will listen.

You're not going to like this BUT – I bet Bush would be fun to have a beer with, and here's why. He is a guy who can put 'em back. (Why else do you think he goes on those vacations?) Junior knows how to get rowdy. (Those daughters learned it from somewhere and it wasn't from that Stepford wife of his.)

My latest daydream fantasy: the President and I walk into a bar and throw back dozen or so Lone Stars. I then challenge him to a wrestling match. . .you know I could goad him into it. Here's what I'd say:

"Hey Georgie Boy, can't finish what your father started, eh?"

"Too bad Rumy has to do all the dirty work for you."

"Bet you really could mix it up if Karl wasn't around, huh?"

I'd probably space out these three lines over the course of 5 minute span so he'd get progressively more incensed and couldn't resist the urge to attack me. Some combination of these lines would eventually do the trick. The man can't handle serious criticism of any kind. Whenever Kerry challenged him at the podium he looked like the pinkie toe who wanted WEE-WEE-WEE all the way home.

"But Mom, I'm a war President. . .I'm a war President."

"You sure are, Georgie, you sure are."

If my first string of insults didn't do the trick, I would pull out the big gun: "I could be president too, if my DADDY got me the job."

Yeeaah, that's pretty good. Then, after Junior took the bait and lunged at me, I would proceed to kick the President's ass, in a bar fight no less. (Even though Junior and I are about the same height, I've got at least 15 pounds on him and I bite . . . and the Secret Service couldn't get in there before I took a big chunk out of those sexy legs of his. After that, no matter what happens, weeks from now all the national media would thank me for ensuring they would never again have to mention Bush's jogging stamina. There might even be a parade in my honor in streets of Austin. (Note to Homeland Security vigilantes: the President attacked me first so this isn't a federal offense . . . ha, ha.)

Yes, this what I think about when unoccupied.

What do I expect in return for embarrassing the President in a bar fight? - In the final debate I want Kerry to stop, forget his train of thought and say these words:

"Crap, I don't remember the word . . . Madden used it Monday night. Man, that guy is amazing."

Tell me, this isn't brilliant?! It would instantaneously erase memories of Kerry's windsurfing and snowboarding antics. It would be a sound-bite moment on par with when Daddy Bush admitted during the '92 campaign he didn't know what the inside of grocery store looked like – except with the reverse effect.

OK, for the next column there will be a contest: email me what the debates would have looked like if Kerry and the national media hadn't scared the nation into nominating him. In other words, what would Howard Dean have done differently? How would Bush have responded? Or, simply e-mail the best way to taunt John Kerry into a bar fight. The best responses will be incorporated –if you so desire, with your name included – into the next column.