Pass The Salt...

What is it about the human race that makes us so competitive?

It's probably the old biological thing about survival. If I kill the tiger, A) it doesn't kill me and, B) I'm eating and, well, you're not.

Plain and simple I suppose.

The modern equivalent, at least in politics, seems to be the way in which one party vilifies the other.

To listen to the GOP you would think that Barack Obama was a murderer. And the Democrats paint the Republicans as heartless inheritors of the Gestapo mentality.

Neither is true, really. It is just that one party wants control on behalf of its' constituency and the other wants the same.

If we make our opponent out to be the devil and gin everyone up into frothing hatred then it's much easier to prevail at the polls. We don't have to articulate a vision or stand for anything. We can just amble along spewing venom and whipping people up into a frenzy. If we can get people to vote from their hearts rather than their heads then we are good to go.

Them against us. Rich against poor. Smart against stupid. It's all just man vs. tiger, twenty-first century version.

Obama isn't a bad guy. Neither is Romney nor Gingrich. They are just flawed humans seeking acknowledgement and love. They all had childhoods from which they are recovering and experiences that formed their points of view.

They all have good ideas and all probably have some sense of honor and duty, even if it seems to be hidden behind a wall of ideological rhetoric.

We are all in the same boat. We all have fears and idiosyncracies and desires. We all aspire to something, whether to win the lottery or to grow tomatoes or to become the president. We are all looking for fulfillment and for the people around us to tell us that we are safe and ok.

I would like to think that my vote is based on my political philosophy. I would like to think that I vote for someone because he has good ideas that align with mine. I would like to think that I don't vote for someone because I like his personality or the color of his wife's hair. I would like to think that I am better than that.

But what I'd like and what is true are, unfortunately, two different things.

I don't like Mitt Romney and I like Newt Gingrich even less. And I'm not that crazy about Barack Obama either. It's hard for me to hear their arguments because I get lost in my emotions. I don't feel that any of them has "my back" nor do I feel that any one of them has the faintest idea how to fix the problems that beset this country at this moment. I feel that they are all out for themselves and that what matters to me doesn't matter to them at all.

But their consultants are hoping that I will like their guy better than the other guy. They are hoping that their guy will convince me that he and I are "alike" and that he understands my "situation."

That's their hope. So far they haven't convinced me.

So far I don't like any of them.

And the tiger is getting closer and closer to the mouth of my cave and, frankly, that scares the hell out of me.

That bothers me much more than Mitt Romney's money or Newt Gingrich's sex life or Barack Obama's birthplace.

I just hope I don't taste very good. After all, I'm old and fatty and getting close to my expiration date.

One can only hope...