Ask Big Daddy

Dear Big Daddy,

I’m a new, young Democratic staffer. I came here to do battle with evil warmongering Republicans. But, being young and single, I also came for a social life. While most people here are fairly nice, I’ve discovered that on the whole the Republicans are nicer. I’ve even–gasp–become friends with a few. How do I break this news to my parents?

–Down with the GOP

Dear GOP Curious,

You’re hardly the first to notice the overall geniality of GOP staffers. Some say it’s their frat/sorority training, the excess generosity they save up by reserving it for people they know, or their far superior ability to hold their liquor (big points in Big Daddy’s book).

All of these could play a role. But also keep in mind they have no reason not to be nice. With few bills really in play and their member probably eyeing a congressional seat out of East Sheepflirter, of course they’re looking for people to hold their liquor with. Dem staffers may seem like they’re blowing you off, but it’s not really a fair comparison. They’ve got work to do, writing bills to keep people from putting leashes on their sea monkeys and the like.

It’s been this way for a while, aside from a minor hiccup of jerky behavior by Republican staffers during an 11-month spell in the mid-1990s. Look it up.
Few people know more about being in power than Big Daddy, and let me tell you, it killed me being a jerk all the time (well, that and prostate cancer). Ever meet someone who seemed nice but really they’re a rat bastard? I was the opposite. Behind closed doors, I could be like a less neurotic Mother Teresa you could have a drink or four with.

Out in public, I glowered, bullied and called you a short-peckered son of a bitch, rather than remember your name. I had to. It was the legislation that mattered, not anyone’s feelings. I’d cuss you out like a birthing mother cusses her husband. Sometimes, say when a legislator couldn’t wrap his puny mind around what amendments he was going to have to take to get out of my committee, pretty much the same dynamics were at work.

So what to tell those aging hippies you call a family? At this moment in American political history, the folks probably aren’t ready to meet hear about your new friends. So do what kids everywhere do when they make lifestyle choices their parents don’t like: lie.

That is unless, God forbid, you marry one. Then you’re on your own, kid.