The Political Buzz

I keep thinking that I ought to blog about the political activity that has inundated Austin, but I'm just not sure what to say about it. I'm probably the most apolitical person you ever met; I have to stop and think, "Okay, is the president a Demowhatsit or a Republithingy? So does that make me the opposite Party, or am I a Libertine?" I just don't know, and there's another line just below that.

Mind you, I vote. I do have strong feelings about that. I just think we go about it the wrong way. I have long maintained that we ought to be able to vote against any and all candidates - and if nobody got a majority the office goes unfilled and then we see if anybody notices. But enough of that.

What's got my teeth on edge is the uproar Austin has been in for the last month because of all the attention being paid to Texas by the hopefuls. I'm hopeful, too. I hope they all go away soon, but that's not going to happen. It became obvious that Texas was important to Clinton and Obama and then all heck broke loose.

First the big debate - held, of all places, in the the Rec Sports Center - the UT Volleyball Gym. This limited the crowd to a paltry few thousand and you would have thought the world was ending. I mean, the Drum was a few hundred yards away, and the only time they fill the 17,000 seats there is if UT plays A&M, or maybe a Hannah Montana concert (what's up with that?). If only two thousand people could be there, why did we dodge big charter tour buses all week? You would have thought this was Graceland!

Worse than the debate was all the clamor about who won? You know that when someone interviews Leslie about his take on the debate we are treading on very thin ice. Then each candidate held fund raisers and meet and greets; Hillary did about three simultaneously and Obama held a big rally down on Congress in front of the Capitol building. They are still arguing about how many streets they closed and how much traffic they snarled.

Not only that, they call the house all day. Hillary, Bill, Barak, Barak's wife, the fellow that once walked Chelsea's dog - everybody wants to talk to me about my vote. I am getting suspicious about that though. I tried to talk to Bill when he called, to tell him that was my grandson that he shook hands with in Lubbock a couple of days ago, but he was rude and didn't pay me any attention. He just kept right on talking, no matter what I said. That's no way to win MY vote Billy Bob!

But worst of all are the TV ads. How in the world did we get so important that it was imperative that these yo-yos buy up every available ad minute of every single day? I'm pretty sure that was Barak's wife out on the court with the UT cheerleaders during the K-State game last night. All the other cheerleader's signs said "Texas Fight" on them. Hers said "Hillary Bites."

Let's see. The Primary is just a week away. Surely things will calm done some after that. But it is a long way till November.