November 5, 2008 – We gave our columnar time machine pilots a lighter assignment and sent them into the future only as far as dinner-time tonight, to identify Americans’ top 10 election regrets.
1. I Want to Change My Vote!
“I voted yesterday but, you know, after thinking about the candidates every day since January, this morning I wish I’d voted for the other guy. I’m not completely sure, you know. It’s a hunch. Well, maybe not…”
2. I Want to Change My Wife’s/Husband’s Vote!
“Did that cow/slob really write in Hillary/Paris Hilton?!”
3. Say, Who Finally Won Anyway?
“Look, I stopped at home just for a minute. I was going watch Fox News, drink two beers, then go vote…”
4. We Bungled the Debates!
W.C. Fields recommended solving WW2 by having Roosevelt and Churchill, Hitler and Mussolini fight it out in the Rose Bowl wielding socks filled with dog dirt.
California man of letters John Seiler calls for a drinker’s debate. After each question, candidates would gulp a large shot of their favorite spirit while audiences wait for, as Saint Augustine might have said, in vino veritas. Blogger John Seiler speculates that Obama would have chosen some swank tipple, like Grey Goose Vodka, while McCain would have preferred bourbon.
The Commission on Presidential Debates has approved this idea for 2012, and their spokesman said he was particularly hopeful that we’d “see Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin get snockered and sloppy in defense of our country, possibly ending in a blouse-ripping, hair-pulling cat-fight.”
5. Darn, I Didn’t Vote!
“Now all those sanctimonious snivellers on PBS tell me that I can’t complain. Oh yeah? Washington sucks. Take that, Bill Moyers, and the horse you rode in on!”
6. Darn, I Forgot to Vote!
“I was taking Bobbie Junior to the orthodontist when I remembered I hadn’t bought a cake for Cheryl’s shower. On the way I saw Frances. You remember Frances. She used to live on Maple Terrace with the guy who left her. He had red hair. Anyway, she quit her job last April and wanted me to check out a new boutique…What do you mean I missed it? Election Day is always on a Thursday. It was on a Thursday last year. Anyway, Cheryl got this lovely pair of kitchen mitts…”
7. I Could Have Had a V-8!
In the time it took you to vote, you could have bought and chugged 23 bottles of vegetable juice, giving you enough vitamins, minerals and antioxidants for two months. Then, the next time you relieved yourself, they would have all washed out of your system doing you no good whatsoever. This is a metaphor for the political process.
8. I Could Have Had a V-2!
The V-2 was world’s first ballistic missile, developed by the Nazis in WW2. Groups of wanna-be terrorists in northern Idaho have been trying to build one for years, under surveillance from bemused FBI agents, who give these guys some explosive, watch them blow up from a safe distance and then down a few brewskies at a local bar.
9. Instead of Following the Election like a Good American, I Wish I’d Formed an Investment Bank, Lent Dogpiles of Money to My Idiot Inlaws and Got a $25 Billion Bailout from the Blankety-Blank Government!!!
Self-explanatory.
10. Darn, I Remembered to Vote!
As Oliver Hardy used to say, “and a fat lot of good that did you!” If in doubt, watch this space.
S.J. Masty is a former Washington, DC, speechwriter now based in London as an international communication adviser.
