Back in November, in those Halcyon days, before a vote was cast or a delegate appointed...
I got handed the responsibility for Student Organizing in Southwest Las Vegas. I got handed this because the Student program in Southern Nevada was in complete disarray, and no one else in my office wanted to do it. For that matter, no one else in the city apparently wanted to do it, so they gave it, citywide, to the interns. Left with a program that was not only eating itself alive, but also beset with challenges presented by the school board (fans of her majesty, all), I set upon my lonely mission. I won't bore you with details, only say that soon, with promises of things to help them get into college, I had recruited a small army of motivated high school kids. Most of them had (at the time) only a passing interest in the political process, and nearly none had a clue about the (admittedly bizarre) process through which we nominate our candidates. And so, as part of their orientation, I explained to them the order of voting, and how it might play out. Then, true to conventional wisdom (oh, you poor, poor herd mentality), I predicted that we were likely to know the party's nominee by the time we woke up on February the 6th.
Now, as it happens, and as you know, that isn't exactly the case. And, as I warned the youth of Southwest Las Vegas, there was one last option: that we could emerge from Super-Dooper-PooperScooper-Tsunami-Tornado(unfortunately this one is literal) Tuesday without a clear frontrunner for the nomination. And it so happens, as I included in my long-shot caveat, that the important states will be the ones that DIDN'T move up their nominating primary or caucus in order to be important after all. That's right. After the hoopla, the pomp, a not insignificant amount of circumstance, a heaping tablespoon of grains of salt, and all the jib-jawin' by pundits aplenty, it turns out that everyone who wanted to be cool by arriving early will lose out to the fashionably late.
So congratulations to my ol' adopted state of Washington. And Bully to you, Ohio, you buckeye heartbreaker. Oh, Texas, how could I forget you? You shan't be alone for long, Lone Star. And what of Pennsylvania, land of friendship? Friends aplenty shall you have, Penny, should the deadlock last past March the 4th.
That's right. I know how much all of you looooooooove to have your evening news, newspapers, latenight talk shows, hell, all of media dominated by this seemingly endless process. And it could drag on eternal. Which sucks especially for me, since the longer it takes Barack to win the nomination, the longer I have to wait until I can be hired on staff for the general election campaign.
And that means that I do, in fact, have to keep looking for a job. Since I'm tired of talking about the future of the country (!???!?!?!?!?!), I'm going to take a moment to bitch about looking for work. As it happens, it's been a while since I had to do it with any seriousness. And, as it turns out, it still sucks just as much as it used to. I'd heard about all these advances in technology, but it turns out that going to open-call interviews for stupid jobs you're not really that interested in, but know will help you pay down the mountain of debt you've accumulated while moving across the country and working unpaid for three months, still sucks. And in case that sentence was too long for you, welcome to the club. Distilled: I hate looking for jobs, especially when it's a job I'm tired of doing. But the problem is, I don't want to get a meaningful job (I have now discovered that they do actually exist), only to love it, only to be faced with leaving it to work on the general when (not if) Barack wins the nom. Also, meaninful jobs rarely offer serious cash in a fast way. So I'm reduced to attending open-call interviews for bartending gigs, surrounded by dozens of other, identically dressed and coiffed, candidates with the same experience, desperately scratching to try to make a lasting impact on one of the identically dressed (black or charcoal pinstripe suit, white shirt, blue tie) manager types who's trying not to snore through my response to "what is the most important part of your job as a bartender?" It's incredible how quickly applying for work will make you feel like the least important person in the world. Must be how all these states feel, once the votes are cast and the candidates moved on.
So bully to you, states that are still important. And bully to you, people who still get to vote. And BTW, to my friends and relations in states that continue to matter (I'm looking at you, OH, PA, TX, WA, and anyone I know in other as yet untested places), should I somehow discover that you have failed to vote, and failed to bring three or four friends with you, or should I discover (gasp!) that you voted for someone else (in the democratic contest, anyway), I will be most disappointed. And to Massachusetts: what in the name of god is wrong with you? Are you people all stark raving mad? I don't think there's anyone in MA who reads this, but, if there is, I hope you'll give a good solid whack upside the head to everyone you know who deserves it, for reasons that should be, by now, apparent. I may have to start saying I'm from somewhere else. And that gets really hard to explain when I'm wearing a Red Sox hat, so please, find a way to make it up to us!?!
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