Run for Cover, The Elections Are Here!

Upon entering some stores at the beginning of the summer, you will be greeted with signs reading “Back to School Sale!” When school starts, you will see in many department stores ‘Halloween Sale!” signs, and in early November the “Only 45 Days Left Before Christmas!” begin to pop up. You haven’t even finished swallowing Christmas dinner and St. Valentine is knocking on your door. You grab your credit card, run to the store, and drown yourself in debts. Publicity works; publicity is designed to work you.

You are not alone, friend. This is enough to drive anyone crazy. And the system isn’t designed for you to think much. Mr. Buch (as my father and Hugo Chavez call him), Hillary, et al, think for you. Worrisome, isn’t it?

We are in the middle of summer 2007 and the presidential debates are a dime a dozen. This is a double-edged sword. If you like debates—the majority of this nation’s citizens don’t bother to watch them—all is well. If you are a normal person, Hillary Clinton and the bizarre John Edwards will be shoved down your throat and, if things get too tedious, they will toss Al Sharpton at you—the token funny black guy that runs for president every year. With a year and a half left before the next elections, the candidates are even popping up in your soup bowls. This is the way the system works: pelting you with presidential candidates whether you like it or not. Politics has always been a great business, but now it is a full-fledged multi-million dollar industry.

They always have a domesticated Hispanic (Bill Richardson) or an old senator that tells jokes (Chris Dodd). Now they have Barack Obama, an African-American with a realistic chance if the rules of the game weren’t so well-established.

Hillary would have a chance of being elected with Obama, but they both attack each other to attract the attention and the votes of the naïve citizens; thus they divide the vote and distract the attention from the true plans the party intends to execute. It is part of the age-old strategy of confusion. Hillary gives the impression that she favors Edwards, but you never know with the Clintons. Obama is smart enough to know this and has to play like a champion in order to not make a mistake that would put him in a state of political emergency. This is why the man chose to put his life in the public eye before the Clintons could do it for him. Basically, Obama is struggling not only for his presidential candidacy, but for his political life, which would be destroyed in the blink of an eye should he slip or fall. You see, Obama is black and has a very commercial name, whose pronunciation is comparable to the words of idiot cavemen.

The problem is that, just like department stores, the Democratic candidates are tiring everyone. Plus, these candidates appear—like the stores’ good, cheap, pretty items—one thing when you buy them and another when you begin to use them, putting you in a panic over their covert deficiencies. However, there is a catch: in politics, you cannot return the broken items (read: candidates).

The Republicans are in a worse situation: they only have one candidate. And his name is Giuliani. This is something like being named Tony Soprano for the sinister Karl Rove’s army of Heartland rednecks.

Hillary Clinton, famous for throwing a jar at Bill (Clinton) and for her commercials promising miracles for the Hispanic community, is a wasted image, or, should I say, an image remastered by plastic surgery and imagemakers that ask for millions of dollars in order to sell this image to the American public, including minorities.

Senator Clinton is an image of the past. Only voter ignorance and stock market speculation could drag her out of the museum of the 20th century. Let’s not forget that it was in a past century when she played the protagonist in the near-complete destruction of this country’s health care system, the one the disgustingly voluminous Michael Moore has taken an antipathy to. It is a dual tactic. Hillary and the liberals try to destroy the health care system—perhaps the best in the world—and Michael Moore (alias “Hamburglar”) attacks the mess in order for the very same Hillary, Edwards, and the vile Nancy Pelosi to bring the panacea to the masses, eager to not work and receive everything for free. The Clintons set the example, instilling an atmosphere of incompetence and immorality in this country never before seen in its history.

If Hillary Clinton says the health care system has to be reformed, she is saying that the disaster she was integral in creating needs repair. If she promises to fix or improve America’s health care system, she is a hypocrite. She had, not one, but eight years in which to do that. Perhaps her biggest hypocrisy will be to claim in her campaign ads that she will work to improve the conditions of Latinos in the US. The vibrant Latin American community has not seen a hair on the head of this lady since she garnered her first taste of power as Governess of Arkansas.

These are unscrupulous people.

She intended to do the same with the African-American population when she changed her accent and in an African-American church began to speak like a Black woman. This infuriated many members of the community that saw the true face of a woman that, perhaps, will become the next President of the United States.

Hypocrisy is the pseudoym of politics. In this the Republicans are not far behind. If you believe you have not seen them on television debating, promising, and loving Hispanics, you’re right. They are waiting for the Democrats to drive everyone up the wall before they decide to crash the party. The Republican parade begins in August with its new political star, Rudy Giuliani. And from August to November 2008 these people will make sure you know how good and affordable they really are. If you decide to ignore them, it will be impossible. If you really decide to ignore them, start packing and move to another planet—and do it with much care. If they find out you are living on the Moon or on Mars, they will find out your address and send you 500 mailings and pamphlets via spaceship.

If all this is already stressing you, you should understand that politics and shopping are not only the two national pastimes, but the duty and obligation of all the citizens of this nation.

If you don’t participate, no one will force you to, but you will be “participated” in the decisions you are already included in, family and all. However, you do have the right to complain and yell. Thank God and this country’s democracy for that, but please don’t forget to pay your taxes. So I guess it’s best to vote and watch the debates, after all. When all is said and done, just like the Twilight Zone, you’ve fallen into a zone with no exit.