Politics aren't us

Oh man, it’s a good thing I’m not a politician. For me. For you. For the planet Jupiter. Not just because I’d expend all my political capital attempting to get rid of that primitive custom known as bartime. And then try to roll back the scourge of those silly speed limit restrictions.

I mean, what’s the sense of selling Shelby Mustang GTs if you can’t blow out the carbs once in a while? And what about society’s unconscionably puritanical obsession with sex workers? Who’s with me here? Hugh Grant? Eddie Murphy? Governor Spitzer? Senator Vitter? Somebody, back me up.

You can’t say I didn’t give it a go either. Politics, that is. Not prostitution. But then, they’re easy to mix up. Back in 87, I ran for mayor of San Francisco. Spent $1500. Came in fourth out of 11. Got 2% of the vote. The three guys who beat me out each spent over a million dollars apiece.

So on a dollar per vote basis, I am mayor of San Francisco. Of course, no matter what incentives were offered, those persnickety, math obsessed electoral commissioners continually failed to come around to my way of thinking.

I did learn a couple of things, such as when you yell out at candidate forums: “The hell you looking at?” most of your prospective constituents don’t get the joke. Also, it turns out I have less patience dealing with total stone crazed loonies than most octogenarians have with hard plastic bubble packaging.

Apparently, diplomacy and Durst go together like Picasso and popsicles. Like hardwood screws and garbage disposals. John Goodman and thongs. Cigarettes and Santa Monica. Hot dogs and opera. You get the picture.

Oh sure, I’ve made a halfway decent living mocking and scoffing and taunting our various elected officials, but what most of us fail to appreciate are the necessary complement of specialized growths our beleaguered civil servants are forced to sprout.

Slippery skills, like appearing way too happy to see people you don’t even know. How to wear clothes so boring, tailors weep in your presence. Or saying stuff you don’t really mean for fear of inflicting possible offense upon potential contributors you wouldn’t be caught dead with in a zombie infested chemical lab sub basement huddling from rampaging mutants. And yes, I am talking about pollsters.

For instance, look at what occurred over the last week to the three presidential candidates. Barack Obama was forced to declare he doesn’t share all the views of his minister. Which should have been implicit to begin with.

After all, 44% of this country is Catholic, but does that mean our national pastime is double dating altar boys? I think not. Then John McCain got himself castigated mightily for mixing up the Sunnis and Shiites. Or did he? Has anyone considered this might just be a clever campaign ploy to nail down that coveted swing vote consisting of stupid people?

And who among us could hold our tongues like Chelsea Clinton did after some cretin wondered about her mother’s response to Monica Lewinsky. My retort: “Blow it out your butt, dirtbag” would have garnered equal time with the Reverend Jeremiah Wright on a FOX News loop.

Speaking of Chelsea’s mom, one can’t help but admire her steady eye and straight face when explaining how she misspoke about coming under hostile fire in Bosnia 12 years ago. My guess is eventually it will be revealed that it wasn’t her, it was her husband, and it wasn’t Bosnia, it was their bedroom. See, not very politic. Told you.

Will Durst’s new book, The All American Sport of Bipartisan Bashing, available from Ulysses Press on May 1st. New? First. Amazon. B & N. Book Passage. You know. The usual suspects.

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