It’s simply glorious today here at home, the fall colors at peak and the sun shining fierce autumnal rays through them, and it was likewise a challenge to sit inside, even with a very impressive view of it all, pounding away as I was on yet another policy analysis with a short deadline. Then the phone rang. On the other end was what sounded like a young lady with a New York accent, who told me she was conducting a presidential poll.
Now, I know a lot of telemarketers try to snag suckers by pretending they are taking opinion polls, so the first thing I did was grill her about that. Once having satisfied myself that she wasn’t going to conclude her questions with a sales pitch, however, I consented, for several reasons. First, I firmly believe in participatory democracy. Second, I am quite aware of the fact that the Zip Code I live in is considered representative of successful, influential voters, and that consequently I get quite a few calls from opinion organizations, usually five or more a year. Thirdly, agreeing to answer this young lady’s questions would provide me with an excellent excuse to goof off for about ten minutes or so and look out the window at the beautiful autumn scenery – and not feel the least bit guilty about not working on that damn policy analysis, either. So I told her to go ahead.
Pollster: Are you registered to vote?
Tom: Yes.
Pollster: Did you vote in the last presidential primary?
Tom: Yes.
Pollster: Do you intend to vote in the next presidential primary?
Tom: Yes.
Pollster: Have you ever voted for a Republican to be president?
Tom: Yes.
Pollster: Thank you. May I continue to ask you some more questions, then?
Tom: Okay.
Pollster: Do you know that Mitt Romney is running for president as a Republican?
Tom: Yes.
Pollster: Are you aware that Mitt Romney is a Mormon?
Tom: Yes.
Pollster: Did you know that Mormons believe that their Book of Mormon is superior to the Holy Bible?
Tom: That ain’t the half of it, lady. Their whole mythology is so ridiculous, believing in it would embarrass a Scientologist.
Pollster: Some people say the Mormon Church is a cult. Do you think that would that make voters more or less likely to support Mitt Romney?
Tom: Well, some people are smart enough to come in out of the rain, too. Of course the Mormons are a cult, but I bet that’s some kind of strange attraction for a significant portion of the electorate. So, while I’d sooner write in Satan than vote for Mitt Romney, the fact that the Mormons are obviously a religious cult like the Branch Davidians or something, but who just got lucky and now control three states of the Union, that might actually work in Romney’s favor when the votes get counted.
Pollster: Did you know that although Mitt Romney has five sons, not one of them has ever served in the military?
Tom: Those Mormon guys are lovers, not fighters, you know. What with all those wives and so forth, they can’t very well be marching off to war can they?
Pollster: I believe I’m the one asking the questions here, sir.
Tom: Oh, sorry.
Pollster: No problem, sir. Did you know that Mitt Romney himself avoided going to Vietnam by taking advantage of deferments related to foreign Mormon missionary work?
Tom: No, I was not aware that Mitt Romney adopted the missionary position over Vietnam, but I can’t I’m the least surprised.
Pollster: So, on a scale of one to ten, where one is “totally expected it,” and ten is “never thought it could happen,” how surprised are you that Mitt Romney shirked his patriotic duty and traveled around France eating cheese while other American men his age were sweating, bleeding and dying in a rotten, insect ridden, disease infested malarial jungle hell hole, fighting ruthless atheistic Communists fanatics who booby trapped the bodies of dead soldiers, dug holes full of human waste and sharpened bamboo sticks in the middle of foot paths and wired their own babies up with grenades in order to kill Americans?
Tom: I’d say, on that scale, a one, for sure.
Pollster: You would totally have expected it?
Tom: Absolutely. Mormons are greedy, nepotistic cowards. Everybody knows that.
Pollster: Did you know that the Mormon Church actively seeks out and suppresses documents that provide evidence debunking their belief system?
Tom: Well, so do the Roman Catholics and probably a number of other religions, but, yeah, you have a point, the Mormons are utter fanatics about that kind of thing; take the “Salamander Letters” incident for example.
Pollster: Excuse me, sir?
Tom: My answer to your question is “yes.”
Pollster: Thank you. Does your knowledge of that attitude among powerful Mormons make you concerned for how Mitt Romney might behave with respect to government secrecy if he were elected president?
Tom: Madame, if Mitt Romney is elected President of the United States, his administration’s level of paranoia will make Dick Cheney look like Jimmy Carter.
Pollster: I’m sorry, sir, but what does that statement mean?
Tom: It means yes, I am very concerned about the openness, or rather the lack of it, that any hypothetical Mitt Romney administration might have.
Pollster: Thank you. Did you know that the Mormons didn’t allow black people to become bishops until 1975?
Tom: As far as I know, the Mormons generally believed black people and Native Americas weren’t actually human until fairly recently, like maybe the nineteen fifties, or thereabouts.
Pollster: Really?
Tom: Is that one of your poll questions?
Pollster: Ah, no. Let’s move on, then – did you know that Mitt Romney changed his position on abortion from right-to-life and now supports woman’s-right-to-choose?
Tom: Yes, I knew that.
Pollster: On a scale of one to ten, with one being “Mahatma Gandhi,” and ten being “Adolf Hitler,” how hypocritical do you think Mitt Romney is for his abortion position flip-flop?
Tom: I’d give him an eight, “Richard Nixon.”
Pollster: What chance do you think Mitt Romney has to be elected president?
Tom: Ice cube in hell.
Pollster: I beg your pardon, sir?
Tom: On a scale of one to ten, where one is “as inevitable as death, taxes and the need for further research funded by those taxes,” and ten is “about as likely as reversal of the Second Law of Thermodynamics,” I’d give Mitt Romney’s presidential aspirations a seven, “ice cube in hell.”
Pollster: I see. Thank you. Do you know who John McCain is?
Tom: He’s the son of an admiral, Annapolis midshipman, Navy aviator, Vietnam war hero, decorated former POW, United States Senator and Republican candidate for president.
Pollster: Does the fact that Senator McCain completed over 300 fighter-bomber jet landings on an aircraft carrier in the storm tossed South China Sea defending the freedoms we all cherish warm your heart?
Tom: Yes.
Pollster: By approximately how many degrees Fahrenheit does thinking about Senator McCain’s prowess as a supersonic warrior warm your heart?
Tom: By approximately two degrees Fahrenheit.
Pollster: On a scale of one to ten, where one is “pictures of war atrocities and genocide depicting emaciated and dismembered bodies in degrading positions and filthy surroundings,” and ten is “pictures of little freckle-faced, ginger-headed Norman Rockwell tykes frolicking with cocker spaniel puppies in a verdant late spring landscape set in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, with a wry visual joke indicating maudlin empathy and gratuitous involvement of the viewer,” how heart warming is Senator McCain’s prowess as a supersonic warrior hero?
Tom: I’d say, five, “Mediocre oil painting depicting the Charge of the Light Brigade.”
Pollster: Thank you. Does the fact that Senator McCain was taken prisoner by the brutal and ruthless North Vietnamese, was subsequently extensively tortured in a large number of indescribably agonizing ways, and never, not once, revealed any military secrets, make you more likely to vote for him?
Tom: Not really.
Pollster: It doesn’t?
Tom: The Navy was very, very careful not to tell the pilots anything that the North Vietnamese could use, because the brass knew that, statistically, some of them were going to get shot down, survive the crash, and be taken prisoner. And the pilots knew that, and so did the North Vietnamese. So all the torture at the Hanoi Hilton was directed at getting the captured pilots to participate in the Vietnamese Communists’ idiotic propaganda campaign against what they called “the Running Dog Yankee Imperialist War Machine,” and such stuff as that. Only the most wacked-out NLF sympathizers in the United States could possibly take confessions like that seriously, and frankly, I’ve always thought that the State Department and the CIA vastly exaggerated the value of such statements for the Commies in third world countries or left-wing European…
Pollster: Sir?
Tom: Yes ma’am?
Pollster: Is that a “no?”
Tom: Yes, that’s a “no,” but as you must realize, it’s a very qualified “no.” Every true American owes John McCain, and thousands of other Vietnam veterans like him, a great deal of gratitude and respect. But one must also realize that refusing to make propaganda films for the North Vietnamese became a big macho spitting contest, if you get my drift, inside the Defense Department. Guys who stood up against the torture were more admired down at the Pentagon than guys who basically said “Okay, I’ll make the stupid propaganda films, it doesn’t matter because nobody who has the common sense God gave a garden slug back in the States is going to believe them, anyway.” But McCain couldn’t do that, because his father was an admiral.
Pollster: I see. Thank you. In an electoral contest for president between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, who do you think would win?
Tom: Assuming the majority of Americans are still sane, I’d say Obama.
Pollster: In an electoral contest for president between John McCain and Barack Obama, who do you think would win?
Tom: McCain – but only because the Republicans would pull illegal shenanigans in Ohio, Florida and Michigan, and the Democrats, as usual, wouldn’t have the foresight or the guts to stop them. Then it would go to the Supreme Court again, where I’d say McCain gets about an eighty-five percent chance of becoming president even though he loses the popular vote, just like George W. Bush did to Al Gore in 2000. Oh, and McCain wouldn’t be the architect of the dirty tricks, either. But if he got nominated, the fascists in the Republican Party would do anything to get another Republican into the White House, no matter who he is. Bottom line, it’s just not likely. No way Romney or McCain are ever going to get the Republican nomination.
Pollster: Is is fair to say that’s your considered opinion about both candidates, sir?
Tom: Absolutely, although McCain would be a much better president than Reagan, Clinton or either of those Bush bozos.
Pollster: But you don’t think McCain can win the Republican nomination?
Tom: Not with unscrupulous, power-hungry, conniving, political monsters like Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee, Fred Thompson, Duncan Hunter, Tom Tancredo, and Hillary Clinton out there, willing to do anything to shoot a decent man like McCain in the back, preferably with a poisoned arrow. I mean, really, people like that will stop at nothing to keep a truly qualified person like McCain from becoming president. They’re all a bunch of demented whores, the lot of them – sucking off special interests, money-grubbing monopolist billionaires, bible-thumping religious nut cases, amoral defense contractors, corrupt mafia-run labor organizations, featherbedding government bureaucrat unions…
Pollster: Sir?
Tom: Yeah?
Pollster: Thanks for your time.
Tom: You’re quite welcome.
Pollster: One final question: how many times have you voted in the New Hampshire primary before?
Tom: I’ve never voted in the New Hampshire primary.
Pollster: Excuse me?
Tom: I said, I’ve never voted in the New Hampshire primary.
Pollster: But you’re registered to vote, aren’t you?
Tom: Sure.
Pollster: But you’ve never voted?
Tom: I’ve voted in every election and primary since I was old enough to vote.
Pollster: And you live in New Hampshire, isn’t that correct, sir?
Tom: No, I live in Virginia.
Pollster: I beg your pardon, sir? Did you say you live in Virginia?
Tom: Great Falls, Virginia. Lovely place, provided you can afford it.
Pollster: I’m sorry, sir, I thought I was speaking to someone in New Hampshire.
Tom: That’s not hard to believe, madame, not at all. I happen to know that the Area Code for New Hampshire is 603.
Pollster: Yes, sir, it certainly is.
Tom: Do you know what the Area Code for Northern Virginia is?
Pollster: No, sir.
Tom: It’s 703.
Pollster: Oh, I am so very sorry, sir; it seems I have made a mistake.
Tom: No problem. You new on the job?
Pollster: I… ah… this is my first day, sir.
Tom: Right. Watch that Area Code, then, when you punch in the number for your next interview.
Pollster: I certainly will, sir.
Tom: And by the way, who does your polling organization represent?
Pollster: I… I’m not supposed to say.
Tom: Really?
Pollster: That’s what they told me.
Tom: And for fifteen bucks an hour, you don’t ask them any questions.
Pollster: No, I ask you questions. And it’s nowhere near fifteen dollars, either.
Tom: Do you think you are you going to get paid for interviewing somebody in Virginia when your employer’s client is trying to smear Romney and McCain in New Hampshire?
Pollster: Uh, probably not.
Tom: Better get on to your next victim, then.
Pollster: I… yeah, I guess so. Thanks anyway, sir.
Tom: You’re welcome, anyway, too.