Pissing in America’s Stream of Consciousness – Day Two

By Chris Faraone on Sat, Jan 5, 2008 5:33 pm

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I’ve been a Dennis Kucinich fan since 2003, when I was abducted by aliens who coerced me to accept a leading role in his last hapless presidential bid. In addition to the intergalactic intervention, I was also persuaded by the fact that he’s the best candidate for me. I truly respect Kucinich’s courage – always have and always will – but in this past year I’ve both admired and resented his perpetual lunge at the White House. Not because I’m one of those hack pundits who think every race should begin and end with a few top media-propped candidates, but because while I know that he’s on point – and perhaps the only one in either party who is generally interested in engineering social equality – I’m constantly embarrassed by his campaign.

The five minutes that I spent in Kucinich’s Manchester office gave me flashbacks of the 2004 campaign I helped run in New York City. I haven’t seen such a swarm of apathetic credit-seeking students, bleeding heart fools and barely post-pubescent Sondheim fanatics since liberal arts school. All week I’ve been griping about how a maniac fringe Republican like Ron Paul can generate so much more steam than his benevolent equivalent across the aisle, and I think I’m closing in on an answer. Instead of focusing on pragmatic people who might agree with his ideas if they paid attention, Kucinich hangs in smoothie bars and vegan delis. The highest-ranking member of his staff who was on the premises couldn’t tell me one place where the man was speaking today.

Kucinich Heads

Having had enough with self-destructive loser staff types, I went back to covering the dirty rotten scoundrels who have a shot at placing in this kumite.

I’m beginning to think that Hillary Clinton’s declining popularity has to do with the aggressive presence of armed guards and police dogs at her campaign events. To cover ground, the Clintons have embarked on separate speaking tours this weekend. I went to peep Bubba at a high school up north in Dow, where I was greeted by a Reservoir Dogs-esque cop and K-9 team in the bathroom. And while it would have been mightily ironic to get busted holding weed at a Bill Clinton event, I felt relieved to have left my crops back at the car.

This was probably one of the smallest crowds that Bill Clinton has ever romanced; it was less than half the turnout that Mike Huckabee – that other former Arkansas governor – turned out in a nearby gymnasium just one day earlier. Sure, Bill Clinton didn’t have Chuck Norris in tow, but that’s just because there aren’t enough mops in New Hampshire to soak up the roaring female cum rapids that would surely flow if Chuck and Bill were in the same room at one time.

Bill was on time in a way that no other presidential candidate or celebrity has ever been on time before; Toni Morrison was wrong – he wasn’t really the first black president, which is good news for Obama. After being introduced by a local politician who said something about change, change and change – political panhandling, if you ask me – he gave the first amazing speech that I’ve seen so far this week.

Bill Clinton

I have to admit – Bill still chokes me up every damn time. He can even make this “change” shit sound convincing. Always the diplomat, he even managed to praise governors Huckabee and Romney before diving into pharmaceutical corruption and slashing Bush for appointing cronies instead of competent officials. It would have been cliché rhetoric out of any other politico’s jaw, but Bill marinates my soul. For a moment, he nearly convinced me that his wife is a committed public servant instead of a megalomaniacal carpetbagger.

And like that – we’re off to the Manchester pub scene.