My guy’s guys are better than your guy's guys

THE VILLAGE IDIOT by Jim Mullen

It’s not my job to get my guy elected pres­i­dent. It’s his job to get him­self elected pres­i­dent. As much as I like my guy, I’m not on his payroll.

Every time I see some­thing on TV that I think is unfair to my guy, it’s not my job to scream at the TV. My guy has tons of media advis­ers who are paid well to do that. Every time I see a story in the news­pa­per about my guy that I think is unfair, it is not my job to write let­ters to the edi­tor telling him what a low-life, bottom-feeding, amoral, unqual­i­fied, lying, empty suit he is. It’s the job of my guy’s guys to do that.

My guy pays scads of pro­fes­sional, expe­ri­enced polit­i­cal cam­paign­ers to do noth­ing all day but tune my guy’s mes­sage into a model of com­mon sense and wis­dom, while at the same time expos­ing the other guy’s lies, dis­tor­tions and com­plete lack of character.

It’s not my job to post angry mes­sages on the newspaper’s web­site every time I think it has got­ten some­thing wrong. Besides, every time I do that, one of the other guy’s guys replies to my post by say­ing some­thing worse about my guy than what was said in the orig­i­nal story. After exchang­ing angrier and angrier posts for a few hours, not only has no one’s mind been changed, but I dis­cover that the only peo­ple read­ing the debate are the two par­tic­i­pants. Ten peo­ple, tops, are read­ing these siz­zling, artic­u­late and fac­tu­ally accu­rate posts. It has all been an incred­i­ble waste of time, espe­cially when my guy’s guys will appear on all the Sun­day morn­ing talk shows, where they will reach an audi­ence five or 10 times the size of our lit­tle debate. My guy’s guys will set the record straight, while the other guy’s guys will lie and pet­ti­fog and try to pull the wool over the eyes of unsus­pect­ing vot­ers. That is what they are paid well to do.

It seems there is lit­tle unem­ploy­ment in the pet­ti­fog­ging busi­ness. It is a vir­tual boom town. Every­one liv­ing there has a high-paying job — the reporters, the can­di­dates, the cam­paign man­agers, the media spokes­peo­ple, the han­dlers, the sched­ulers, the secu­rity guys, the radio and TV talk-show hosts, the polit­i­cal adver­tis­ing peo­ple, the pun­dits and the guys who make the but­tons, lawn signs and bumper stick­ers. And what do they get for all that money?

Imag­ine try­ing to talk a Yan­kees fan into becom­ing a Red Sox fan, or a Bears fan into becom­ing a Pack­ers fan, or any hockey team’s fan into becom­ing another hockey team’s fan. It’s not going to hap­pen. My guy would have to, fig­u­ra­tively, move from Brook­lyn to L.A. before his fans would desert him. Other than that, my guy is get­ting my vote.

All my friends are vot­ing for my guy. We won­der what is wrong with the peo­ple who are vot­ing for the other guy. Are they stu­pid? It occurs to me that the other guy’s guys must be hav­ing the same con­ver­sa­tion: Why would any­one vote for my guy? Are they stu­pid? So, if they think I’m stu­pid and I think they’re stu­pid, it’s easy to see why we’re never going to get off on the right foot.

No won­der my guy and the other guy can’t work together. When I say some­thing about the other guy, all his guys hear is, “You must think I’m stu­pid.” I know, because when they say some­thing about my guy, that’s all I hear.

Some­times when I see one of my guy’s guys on TV, I think, “I could have done a bet­ter job than that.” It’s not really a good sign. After all, my guy hired this guy. What does it say about him? Has the other guy hired bet­ter guys? Has my guy moved his team to LA?

(Jim Mullen’s newest book, “How to Lose Money in Your Spare Time — At Home,” is avail­able at amazon.com. You can fol­low him on Pin­ter­est at pinterest.com/jimmullen.

Posted by Staff Reports on Jun 14 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.