Ask Big Daddy

Dear Big Daddy,

As a rule of action, all Democratic candidates are better than any Republican candidate. And one can’t compromise on candidates. As the umpire said of a disputed call, it is “either dis or dat.”    

—Bill Cavala, contributor to the California Progress Report  

Hi Bill,

It’s great to have you back. I know there was a time — say, last week—when you were skeptical of the ways of Big Daddy. But here you are, back in the fold. Welcome.

To actually answer your question, heck yes I think the Democratic candidates are better. Whenever I look at my Wikipedia page, it says I was a Democrat. My party has a pair of quality candidates fighting it out at the top. People may associate Hillary with the scandals of the Clinton administration — but after seven years of Bush, lots of folks are nostalgic for the scandals of the Clinton administration.

Obama’s main problems are he’s kinda young and sorta black. The youth will take care of itself — remember how Bill Clinton aged four centuries in his first three years in office? And he can overcome the phenomena of the “voting booth racist” — that is, unless Dem voters decide that everybody else is a voting booth racist and he can’t win a general.

Both actually have bold ideas that are a major departure from our current direction. But it wasn’t so long ago that the Democrats seemed to be living in a past defined by the 1960s and the welfare state and taking bribes like it was Tammany Hall all over again. It was Republicans who were the party of ideas.

Of course, we now know they were the party of one bad idea after another. All the GOP candidates are running from Bush like burglars from a crime scene — but they’re kinda slow because they’re loaded down with the giant plasma screen TVs of his policies. They’re still treating the Iraq War like a bar fight where “honor” must be defended. Now if you’ve been in as many bar fights as I have, you know it’s always good to be wary of the guy who’s so drunk he’s liable to puke all over you and keep getting up no matter how many times you punch him. That’s the Iraq War in a nutshell. When someone figures out the honor in that, let me know.

Most want to keep the stratospheric-class tax cuts, get rid of most of the parts of the Constitution that weren’t important enough to make it into the first draft, and defend the rights of embryonic stem cells to go on to lead long and fulfilling lives as medical waste. So, do the policies make more sense if the guy saying them doesn’t sound like one of ‘The Beverly Huckabees’?

Not that this would be an issue with Mike, um, let’s just call that bit above a typo. What else has the GOP got in its quiverfull? Rudy Giuliani has been a pioneer in the area of state-funded adultery — something I’m sure will only add to Mayor 9/11’s already overwhelming appeal down in Dixie. And can you imagine Fred Thompson’s phone calls home from the campaign trail? “All right Jeri, I ran for president. Can I stop sleeping on the couch now? Jeri? You still there, darlin’?”

Stepford Husband Mitt Romney has been attacked as a flip-flopper, but I blame whoever writes his software. Though I do love the idea of multiple first ladies. I’m picturing four years of “The West Wing” meets “The Girls Next Door.” What’s that? Romney renounced polygamy in 2003? Well, there goes my favorite thing about that cyborg.  

I’ve got my fingers crossed that GOP voters don’t come to their senses and nominate Bob Dole … er, John McCain. He’s surged back since steering the Straight Talk Express off a cliff and is instead taking a ride on the Pandering Pony.

McCain’s a dangerous beast. Dems and moderates love him. They think because he’s so straightforward and honest, he must be one of them. They don’t listen to the actual words. He may not satisfy the basest of the base, but on most major issues he really is a conservative. Barring one too many senior moments or grumpy outbursts, he’s the only member of the GOP field I actually fear. It ain’t an endorsement, but I sure do hate it when they count out the old guy.