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Confession Speech "I Want My Job!"By Rick Horowitz
See the senator. See the senator standing on the podium, smiling and waving at the crowd. Watch the crowd cheer him, and watch him give the crowd the "thumbs up." See how radiant he looks under the TV lights -- he looks as if he doesn't have a care in the world. The senator has just had his clock cleaned. The senator has just had his clock cleaned by a nobody, and his cozy little world is crumbling all around him. But you wouldn't know it to look at him. You wouldn't know that he's just lost a primary. You wouldn't know that the voters in his own party have just handed him his walking papers. After all these years, the voters in his own party have said to him, "Enough." Hear him say right back to those voters: Forget about it.
See the senator run. See the senator keep running. Hear the senator explain how the primary didn't really decide anything, that there's still another election in November, that he's still a candidate. Hear the senator explain that he's not doing this for himself, but for his state and his country. Notice how often he mentions "my state." He mentions "my state" constantly these days. He says "my state" to let the folks back home know that, for all his years in Washington, he hasn't lost touch. Or maybe he says "my state" so he doesn't get the name wrong. He's an "independent Democrat," he says. He became an "independent Democrat" the minute his party's leaders decided to support the candidate the party's voters selected. The other candidate. The nobody. "Independent" is what you call yourself when you have to start a new party for yourself just to hang on to your job. He's a candidate of the "new politics," he says. He's been a candidate of the "new politics" for approximately half an hour. That's how new it is. He says the people in his state are tired of the "politics of partisan polarization." He's tired of the politics of partisan polarization, too, he says. Besides, he says, his opponent tells lies. Lies about the senator's record. Lies about how friendly the senator is with the president. Calling his opponent a liar could sound polarizing, too, but everyone knows this senator isn't a polarizer. This senator gets along with people, even unpopular people like the president. He's proud of getting along with unpopular people like the president. But he wants you to know that there's a big difference between getting along with an unpopular president and being the president's "best friend and enabler." He's not the president's "best friend and enabler," he insists. That's "a load of hogwash," he says. The senator loves his job. The senator wants to keep his job. The senator hasn't worked this hard for this long to lose his job to a nobody, in a primary. In August. August doesn't count, the senator says. November is what counts, so the senator will ignore August, and keep running right into November. He feels "very good" about his decision, he says. See the senator standing on the podium, smiling and waving and giving the crowd another "thumbs up." Does it look like he's using a different finger? Posted 8/10/06. Vote early and often for
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Rick Horowitz
