back to Niagara Falls Reporter archive
By the time you, dear readers, peruse these words, you probably will be fully aware of the identity of the 43rd President of the United States of America. I am writing this column in the pre-dawn hours of Nov. 8, trying to shake off an election night political hangover that's packing the wallop of a bottle of Tequila. I mean, I had to be loopy, Katie Couric was still on my television at 2:30 a.m., looking really spent.
As you know, the political pundits played a game of Ping-Pong with the state of Florida between Gore and Bush's ledger for most of the evening. In fact, not since Flutie-Johnson has something of such importance been given and taken away from two men by the son's of Bums.
Whether it ultimately is Bush or Gore (or Gush and Bore if you prefer to identify them by the primary tactics that they put to use on the campaign trail) that assumes the White House is not what's bothering me. It is the fact that Florida--FLORIDA???--casts the deciding votes.
If it had been a state that was among the original colonies, I could have understood. Or a western state of political conservatism like Utah. Heck, I'd even accept Minnesota, where they elected as governor a former professional wrestler with a fetish for feathered boas, but Florida?
The populace of Florida actually contains more blue-haired citizens than found in the Land of Oz. People magazine has to print a special cover for its annual, "50 Sexiest Men" issue for Florida that features a close-up of Bob Barker. Florida is going to decide who will run the country for the next four years?
The Dead Sea wasn't even sick yet when half the people who vote in Florida were born. There's a good bet that a majority of Floridians who pulled the lever for "GeeDubaya" Bush thought they were covering the No. 7 space on a bingo board.
I currently am researching the book of Revelations; I am sure that it is a sign of the Apocalypse when the state of Florida decides a Presidential election. They elected a guy named Jeb governor in Florida. Anywhere north of the Mason-Dixon line, anyone named Jeb can only be identified from the waist down, because the rest of him is inside a mechanics jumpsuit lying under your car. People, they flew the flags at half-mast in Florida when Flipper died. The entire future of the country is in the hands of Florida? Give me a break. Any state that takes its name from the mother on Good Times should never be entrusted with such an important task.
The senility rate is so high in Florida that most people there hide their own Easter eggs. In a recent poll in Florida, 67 percent of residents chose The Dukes of Hazard as their favorite Shakespearean tragedy. Now they are going to choose our President?
The state animal of Florida is the Manatee, a mythical creature with a platypus complex that only has ever been seen on a license plate, and yet everyone there wants to save it. Willard Scott doesn't have enough birthday greetings, and Smuckers enough jam jar labels, for the trillions of centurions that call Florida home.
They play and bet on Jai Alai in Florida, a bizarre Kafkaesque sport invented by the Wham-O Corp. when Frisbee sales began to wane. This really can't be true, can it? A state where 9 out of 10 people go around with the left blinker constantly on and with a box of decorative Kleenex in the back window of their Dodge Darts; these people will speak for us all?
Look, I'm not saying that Florida is all bad. After all, the state does bring us the Grapefruit League each March and the spring break blasts see more young girls baring their breasts than on at least a week of Howard Stern. But these points do not an election-breaker make.
I guess there's nothing more for a northern boy to do but grab a six pack of Gatorade, head out for the nearest early bird dinner special and embrace the words of Ralph Nader: "You can't corrupt a system that's rotten to the core."