Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Observations on the 2012 Election 9.25

I've been watching Bill Maher more and more lately, I always liked him but just never seemed to catch the full show. I really liked what he had to say at the end of Friday's show about voters who are still undecided at this point in the campaign so I thought I would post a transcript of it. Than I ran into the slight problem of Maher himself not posting transcripts so I found myself watching it a few more times and hitting the pause button over and over. Transcribing doesn't seem to be my forte but for what it's worth here is what I came up with.

"To the 5% of American voters who still are undecided on who to vote for, it's okay to admit, you just don't give a shit. Seriously, if you still can't figure out who you like more, Mitt Romney or Barack Obama, stay home because you probably couldn't find your polling place anyway. What more information does a person need? Obama has been President for nearly four years and Mitt Romney has been running for President since 1971. If you can't tell this man from this man (said showing side by side photos) you're not a swing voter, you're a lesbian.

I mean it's okay that there is a tiny percentage of uncommitted voters in a few swing states that will decide the election but please stop treating them as if they were somehow more noble and discerning than the rest of us. Put on a pedestal by the media as if they were Hamlet in a think tank. Searching out every last bit of information, high minded arbiters pouring over policy positions and matching them to their own philosophies. Please, they fall into a category known as low-information voters. Otherwise known as dipshits*. For example according to a PEW research study 40% of Democrats didn't know the Republican was the conservative party. Let me repeat that. No, I would but it's too depressing. Instead let's look at someone who this week announced that she was an undecided voter, Kim Kardashian. She described herself as a liberal Republican. Of course there aren't any of those anymore but pieces of information like that don't reach the low-information voter.

The worst part of all this is that the entire American political process, the debates and conventions and photo-ops with corn dogs, is targeted at this tiny part of the population that just isn't interested. Which would by definition be the least qualified for this deciding role. When are low-information wishy washy people ever desirable to talk to? There is a reason when you have a problem you never seek their advice; "Hey you know who you should talk to about that thing you are going though? Somebody that doesn't know anything about it." This year at the debates instead of them dialing every little moment hook the dials to their foreheads and see if there is any measurable brain activity. Cause I don't need to see another focus group with the nincompoops. I've seen enough to know why they are called focus groups. They are just groups of people that have trouble focusing.

And if I want to see a bunch of uninformed jackasses bullshitting about the election I'll watch Fox and Friends."

*dipshit - A despised person; a moron; an ineffectual person; one with a habit of being wrong, loudly and often.