The Game of Politics By: Joe Alfano Posted on: 9/17/2008

So every few years I get a new sense of just how much I dislike politics.  This is something I have faced since high school, and is well rooted in experience.  I will see if I can summarize the scenarios that have brought me to my current state of disgust with the political process.

I believe it was my sophomore year in high school when some of the more politically minded students decided to have political parties for the student council elections that year.  It was a great idea – in theory.  In practice, it was both an exercise in the elitism that is high school politics, as well as the absurdity of it.  The party name?  The Spork Party.

If you were not a member of the Spork Party, you were basically an independent ticket.  And while there is no problem with that, this was also a lesson in the failings of a party system when it is a one party system.  If you were not a member of the party ticket, you would not get elected.  So it was Spork Party or give up being involved in the Student Council.

I was at first on the ticket for both Representative and as Chancellor.  At the point in which we were to lock in our posts we were running for, the “Party Leaders” decided to ask me to step down as a candidate for Chancellor.  Their reasoning was that there was another student they wanted as Chancellor and they did not want to split the party vote.

Keep in mind, in addition to not being a fan of being told what I have to do; there was no reason for it.  As I stated above it was a one party system, and there were not even any primaries in which the party was allowed to speak their voice on their choice of candidate, and not just the minority of the people in charge of the party.

I refused, stepped off of the Spork Party ticket and ran independent.  And as such, everyone who was voting the “Spork Ticket” was told to not vote for independents.  I lost my election as a representative to someone who had never been to a student council meeting, and came to one just after they were elected.

As a side note, my grade principal at the time was one of the strongest influences in my life.  He allowed me to still attend the Student Council meetings as an auditor or a lobbyist.  This worked out for the Spork Ticket people as none of them had any interest in running the concession stand at the school dances, and I told them that I could run it in my sleep – and I did at least once.

The later part of my high school career was also during the Reagan Administration.  For those of you with a penchant for history, or who are as old as I am, that is indeed the time during which we had the Iran Contra scandal.  That is also the time in which we saw the seed sown by the first George Bush that still poke their head out now and again today.

My friend and I did a report in our history class on the Tower Commission Report that came out over the hearings over the Iran Contra deal.  If you ever wanted something that will sour you on politics, read either that or the Watergate Papers.  We began to treat politics like the joke it was.  My friends and I formed the Freedom Fighters for Ollie North – a group of political satirists in the school.  It may have been less than a half a dozen of us, but we saw the truth in the politics that these miniature Alex P. Keaton’s chose to ignore.

Jump ahead a short year or so, and I am now in college.  Additionally, this is the first election that I am old enough to vote in.  I am in college, living on my own (at least during the school year), and I can choose the person I want to vote for.  You would think that would be an exciting time for me, wouldn’t it?

I went to a school that was saturated by Young Republicans.  And when I say saturated, I mean I was the only one on my dorm floor (including the football player jackhole I was put in a room with by the randomly sadistic computer system in the Registrar’s Office) who was not voting Bush.  Don’t get me wrong, I was not under any delusion that Dukakis was a particularly strong candidate, nor did I think he would save the country.  I just knew that I did not want to see Bush in office.

As I have stated above, my roommate and I did not get along.  In addition to being the king of understatements, that is also a tale for another time.  Remind me though, it is a doosy.

What that meant for my political life that first semester of college was that the Dukakis sign that I had on my door was defaced pretty much every weekend if not more frequently.  My solution was that I went to the local Democratic office and asked for a stack of signs.  I kept them in my closest and every time a sign was defaced, I placed another one up.

Toward the end of the pre-election time, while home for the weekend, the Rabid Republicans in my dorm did something that was creative beyond what I gave them credit for.  They took my Dukakis sign and cut it to form the letters BUSH.  It was still recognizable as a sign in support for the Democratic Candidate, but was defaced in such a way that in my eyes it made a statement to the fact that I was a Democrat that was behind enemy lines.  I left it up for the remainder of the election.

When it was done my wonderful roommate decided to rub the loss in my face.   He brought it on with the incredible insight of, “So how does it feel to be on the losing side?”

He was a little confused when I told him how good it felt.  He had the look of a not terribly bright dog after you faked throwing a treat in the middle of the room.  I of course had to explain it to him.  “It feels like I have no blame for anything bad that happens in the national government for the next four years.  Your candidate is to blame for that.”

You might wonder what is bringing this tale up.  If you have watched the news lately, you are probably not wondering.  This is the single most historical election that will ever come within my lifetime.  In addition to a decided turn away from the war-time support of the last two terms, there are two firsts in an African American candidate and a vice presidential candidate that is a woman.  No matter what side wins, there is another first awaiting us.

Historical relevance aside though, there is a lot of the same.  A serious message of campaigns for as long as I have been a voting member of society has been the mud-slinging advertisement.  They spend large amounts of time and money to tell you not what their stance is on the issues, but how terrible their opponent is.  The only time you hear the name or see the image of the candidate is in the last three seconds when they say, “My name is The Dude and I support this message.”

What this tells me is that in addition to having no real stance on issues, you assume me an idiot.  This is not a lesson in strong politics or communication, but as much a lesson in mob mentality as the single party system that was attempted in my high school.

Seriously, are that many of us willing to throw in with a certain candidate because the other guy is just that bad?  I mean, I did that back during the first election I took part in – when I was eighteen years old.  And while I may not want to see a particular candidate in office, the other guy needs to show me why he would be a good choice, not why he is not as bad of a choice as the other guy.

This came into play the other night while we were watching television.  A political ad came on and there was Obama.  He was talking about his stance on issues, and what things he wanted to fix should I vote for him as president.  At the end of it he said that his name and that he approved of this message.  I stared at the television for a bit much like a dog trying to interpret pre-calc equations, and then asked my wife, “Who was that an ad for?”

Now, had I no bent one way or the other as to which candidate I was voting for, and was working off of a clear plate, Obama would have started off ahead.  In my book, breaking that mold and coming out to tell me what your stance on issues is means you are showing respect to me as a voter.  You are talking to me like a person, which is one of those “little things” I talked about so long ago about James Doohan.

Do I want four more years of the same?  Not really.  Am I ready for change?  Who isn’t?  Does that really do it for me?  No, it does not.  Tell me how you are going to be different.  Tell me what kind of change you want to bring about.

My name is Zombie Joe and I approve this message.