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The magical word

Posted October 9, 2008

There comes a time in many political campaigns (and in most Avril Lavigne songs) when a word just seems to take on a life of its own and becomes a big, fuzzy, narcissistic, self-appointed catchphrase. The word begins to spiral out of control and eventually does nothing but reduce the effectiveness of the speaker who once prized themselves as being such a - here it comes - MAVERICK.

Although admittedly possessing much hotness in some decades past (You'll have to Google it, since this site's picture-posting function never seems to work for me - but let me repeat the phrase "cutie patootie" a few times, woohoo...), McCain's "maverickyness" just isn't doing much for me these days. Call me hard to please, but I need a little something more than the constant dropping of the M-word.

Of course, if you saw Sarah Palin in the Vice Presidential debate last week, you know that somebody has bitten the Maverick bait in a big way. Between the "gosh darns," "bless their hearts," and "y'all come back now, ya hears?" the magic word was a key phrase for Palin in the VP debate. I was just kidding about the "Y'all come back now..."

But I am currently rewatching the debate to count for myself exactly how many times Palin uttered the dreaded M-word, so I might update this blog later with an exact number of hatchmarks...Oh, and it was 6 M-bombs for Palin, 9 for Biden! It would've surprised me, had Biden's usage been a bit less on the cynical side. Darn right, I do love me some doggone cynics.

But back to the magic word: maverick. Slightly worse than "renegade," and only a bit better than "Crow Warrior King," this word has drained any energy the campaign had. The substance of the McCain campaign (marshmallow cream and gun powder) has been lost in a string of cheap, blinking, verbal Christmas lights. And it's not even November.

About the only thing worse than the overuse of the M-bomb is the hideously mispronounced "nuclear" and "Ahmadinejad," and other words of the sort.

Memo to Gov. Sarah Palin: It is not "Nukular," no matter how many times you heard the greatly literate G.W. Bush pronounce it as such. Say it with me, now, Sarah: Nuke...lee...uhr! And "Akmadijad?" No, no, no...Ahh...mah...din..e...jahd! K' sweets?

To quote Obama AND McCain in their most recent debate, "Okay, look." in watching the VP and Presidential debates these last few weeks, I've been picking up on this faint scent. As we've gotten closer to November 4th, and with the tide of words like "change," "maverick," "renegade," "bipartisan" (HA! HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!), and other such terms completely devoid of any true substance, the scent has gotten steadily heavier. Growing, the perfume filling the room until the heady scent overcomes me. Could it be? Is that smell...is it...Manure?

Umm...yep. I mean, don't worry about me shirking my civic duty - I'm still going to cast my ballot (for somebody) on Nov. 4th. Of course, it's not like it matters, since South Carolina will almost surely be in the red. But don't expect me to be smiling about it.

Nope, no smiles for me. As far as I'm concerned, the debates were a constant washing between sycophantic peddling of the issues and the steady, vapid trading of zingers. Answering a question didn't seem to be an issue for ANY candidate. I am starting to think we'd be better off with Kermit the Frog winning the election by a landslide write-in vote, and Fozzie Bear as his Secretary of State.

And of course, Miss Piggy as the V.P....Lipstick on a pig, ya know?