GR: We’ll have to agree to disagree about rates of taxation. But you must admit our tax system is a mess. The U.S. tax code is now four million words long. If you printed that out and dropped it on a taxpayer it would squash him flat.
GD: Yeah, he’d be road kill. You could peel him off the highway and sail him like a Frisbee.
GR: We’ve got to do something about that.
GD: We sure do. I’ve got some specific ideas about how to do it.
GR: So do I. Let’s discuss them.
And the debate would continue in just such a manner—substantive but good-natured—for exactly one hour.
Because, no matter how good presidential candidates are, an hour of listening to them is all we can stand, even in our dreams.
At the end of the debate the Good Republican would say to the Good Democrat, “You obviously care about people. If I’m elected I’m going to appoint you secretary of health and human services—and of education too, because, to save money, I’m gong to eliminate that cabinet post and put it back into the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.”
The Good Democrat would say to the Good Republican, “You’re obviously sharp about fiscal and monetary policy. If I’m elected I’m going to appoint you secretary of the Treasury.”
And then they’d hug.
Now I’ll wake up and wipe the drool off my face.
A License to Drive (Me Crazy)
We should license politicians. Every other profession has some form of accreditation or certification. There are hundreds, possibly thousands, of politicians in Washington, none with any formal qualifications for the job. Yet in the District of Columbia more than 125 other occupations require a license.
We license lawyers, doctors, teachers, accountants, plumbers, real estate brokers, marriage counselors, dental hygienists, cosmetologists, beauticians, and barbers. But a politician has the power to cause more damage and expense than even the worst hair stylist.
As the behavior of lawyers in Washington law firms shows, licensing is no cure-all. Most politicians are lousy. A license to practice won’t make them better. But creating complicated and time-consuming regulatory barriers to becoming a politician might, at least, limit the number of louses.
Politicians should be rigorously educated and highly trained. At college they need to study subjects pertinent to their field. Just eight semesters of abnormal psych may not be enough.
But let’s not send them to our best schools such as Georgetown, Yale, Columbia, or Penn. We’ve tried this before, with mixed results. Is Trump University still open?
Perhaps future politicians should study political science. Ha. Ha. Ha. No. If politics were a science it would have been tried on lab rats first.
More important are the academic disciplines that proto-politicos need to avoid.
Mathematics One look at the federal budget would make a mathematician’s head explode.
Logic Putting a logical person in politics is like putting an astrologer in charge of the Hubble Space Telescope.
Literature and English Composition Have you read the memoirs by successful politicians after they’ve left office? They didn’t achieve preeminence by knowing how to recognize literary skills in a ghost writer.
The most promising candidates in the making will concentrate on campus social life, especially in the dining hall. A vital skill in running for office—especially during presidential primaries—is, as previously noted, the ability to eat six pancake breakfasts and five spaghetti dinners a day at town halls, volunteer fire departments, VFW Posts, Elks Lodges, the Junior Chamber of Commerce, Rotary, Kiwanis, Lions Clubs, American Legion, Knights of Columbus, and B’nai B’rith.
Between meals students can gain additional experience in practical politics by standing on a chair and reciting the same twenty-minute piece of rote gibberish over and over, then taking questions from classmates. (One of which is sure to be “Why don’t you sit down and shut up?”—an existential query that anyone who wants to be a politician ought to ponder deeply.)
And the advantages of the fraternity and sorority system should not be neglected. Some day a secret handshake (or an embarrassing pledge stunt photo, especially if the pledge happens to be in a fraternity or sorority other than one’s own) could be worth millions in campaign fund-raising.
Still one shudders to think what a “political” Animal House would be like—“Toga! Toga! Toga!” Except practicing with real knives, to be a real Brutus, in a real Senate.
On the other hand, political students should avoid student politics. Student politics consist of either donning black ski masks and chasing guest lecturers off campus or tying bow ties and finding pairs of George Will horn-rims to wear to Young Americans for Freedom meetings. This is excellent training to be a lousy voter. But the point is to be a lousy politician.
We have a long history of lousy politicians in this country. America wouldn’t be the nation that it is today without the likes of—to name just a few—Aaron Burr, Millard Fillmore, Warren Harding, Huey Long, Richard Nixon, and James Michael Curley (who served as mayor of Boston while in a federal penitentiary).
We need a rigorous test to ensure that our politicians meet (but do not exceed) America’s traditional standards of lousiness. It should be something like a bar exam or, maybe, in this case, a “low bar” exam.
There would be an essay question. “Say nothing of substance in 5,000 words or more. Extra credit for saying less at greater length.”
And a fill-in-the-blanks section.
Define the Following
Boodle _______
Graft _______
Jobbery _______
Pork Barrel _______
Gerrymander _______
Logrolling _______
Carpetbagging _______
Wire-Pulling _______
Gravy Train _______
And multiple choice.
Circle the Correct Answer
A. The gloves are off in this election.
B. I will do what it takes to win.
C. Really. I mean it. Bring on
