Mocking Words: SWAG at The Polls

I'm not a political individual. I don't particularly identify with any specific political party. It used to be that the parties had very different ideologies. Today? Not so much. A lot of the views held by a lot of politicians, whether they be Republican or Democrat, are similar. I think it's become more how they go about expressing their views and how they decide which bills/laws that they want to back. There's too many liberal Republicans and too many conservative Democrats to make much of a distinction anymore. (Translation: A lot of politicians are just morons. And the only thing more sad than that is that they were chosen to represent the people by those very people that they're doing a poor job of representing.) So, I didn't have a preference for who the Democratic nominee for President was. I did have a preference for when they finally chose one so that the damn thing would finally be over and I wouldn't have to hear about it any more. (Sadly, that preference was about a month and a half ago. Man, they can drag things out, can't they?)

But today, the lady in the pantsuit has finally sung. And that means it's over. Somehow, s

ome way, Hillary Clinton is NOT the Democratic nominee to President of the United States. How in the hell that happened, I'm not quite sure. She had, seemingly, one of the biggest leads/advantages when this whole process started, than any other candidate since (quite possibly) George Washington. She had a boatload of cash. She had a ton of supporters. She had a husband who used to BE the freaking President! (And people kind of liked him when he was President. He's a little different now, but then? They liked ol' Billy Jeff.) I don't know what it was, but I don't think it was entirely just because a lot of people see Barack Obama as charismatic and a good public speaker. (I am probably the only one who does not think that this guy is a great orator. I just don't get it.)

If I had to guess what the downfall was, I'd probably lean toward personality and the impression she gives. I don't know that she comes across as being very "real". I don't want to say "honest", because that implies that she's lying or being dishonest, and that's not what I'm implying. But when you see her interacting with the "little people", her smile seems forced, her words seem rehearsed (and poorly, at that), and it all adds up to a feeling of her just "going through the motions". Don't get me wrong; that woman wanted to be President SO bad. And she was SO close that she could taste it. She could taste it, she could smell it, it was on a plate in front of her and someone handed her a fork. And she didn't even get to put a fork in it, because it had already been determined by then that she was done.

So today she "suspended" her campaign. The term "suspended" is used rather than "quit" because if it's "suspended" then the campaign can continue to receive donations so that the campaign can continue to pay off the debt that it apparently has. (HOW in the hell did she run out of money? WHAT was it being spent on? She had boatloads of cash! Where did it go?!) And I missed seeing her announcement live, but I have a clip. And the clip pretty much sums up what her disposition has come across like the entire time. Do you believe that she's happy? Do you believe what she's saying about her support for Barack and her wanting the party to unify? I guarantee you, this was the hardest thing she has ever had to do in her entire life and she had never once, not once, ever prepared for even the possibility of that moment. I do not envy her a bit.

Do I feel sorry for her? Not in the sense that she lost something that

she really, really wanted. But I do in the sense that I know that people who have a difficulty connecting and communicating with other people have a hard time. Especially when their job requires them and needs them to be personable. It's frustrating if you know you are competent and quite possibly the absolute best person for something, but you just can't communicate that well or you can't display the personality that makes people want to warm up to you. You'll see what I mean.

If she could have said all of that in less than 10 seconds it would have been too long for her. She looked like she was forcing every single word, including "a" and "the", to come out of

her mouth. I guess she gave that speech around noon. So, I'll have to say she was probably drunk by 1:03pm. Here's another clip to compare that one with. Granted, this one is from a Super Tuesday (which was likely not very "super" and that would make it just "Tuesday") victory speech after she had won a bunch of states. It's really long, I don't advocate watching the whole thing unless you have 11 minutes to kill. But within the first minute, you'll see some of the "trying to connect with the little people" moments that just make me cringe. The thumbs up! (Yes. Thumbs up. More than once, I'm sad to say. More than once. ::sigh::) The ridiculously huge smile. (It frightens small children and probably a few small dogs as well.) But it's not a smile that says "I'm happy to be supported by everyone here!" It's a smile that says, "I'm so freaking proud of myself. I am going to be the freaking President of the United States!"

After watching both of those again, I'm really leaning toward the idea that if she was just more personable, she would have nailed it. (Maybe that would help. Maybe she needs to get nailed once in a while. Something like that pretty much puts most people in a pretty good mood. I mean, really, even if it's bad, how bad can it be? You're having sex, for cryin' out loud. Even when it's bad, it's still pretty good.)

Like I said, I am completely un-qualified to assess who would be a good President. Given how phony a lot of them sound and how rehearsed everything comes across, I don't know that anyone can accurately assess who would be the best choice. (By the way, the term for the method of having to make a decision based upon limited information that may or may not be factual or accurate is called SWAG. Speculate Wildly And Guess.) But instead of having to deploy the SWAG method, why don't we just try something completely different for a change? How about if everyone just votes for Walter instead. You're unfamiliar with Walter? Figures. Well, you can see who Walter is and the kind of guy he is in the clip below. And after you watch it, just try and tell me that Walter isn't exactly the kind of guy that we could probably use right now. (He's got more personality than Hillary, I'll tell you that.)