All That and a Bag of Mail: 2012 Election Edition

My political career ended in 2002 when I was fired from a congressional campaign for leaving without proper authorization and wrecking the candidate's wife's Volvo. I was working on the congressional campaign of Jim Cooper, now Nashville's congressman, after my first year of law school and I went to visit my then-girlfriend, now wife, in New York city without proper vacation authorization. I was Cooper's body man -- insert gay joke here -- which meant I was his driver and went everywhere he went. It was actually quite a bit of fun, Cooper was really smart and you find yourself alone in the car all the time racing from one event to another while you have conversations about pretty much everything.

Prior to being fired from the campaign I was a political junkie, college in Washington, D.C., four years working on the hill, I really cared.

Now I'm out of politics completely, I follow it but more as a curious observer than as a partisan.

As I've said before my political philosophy is now pro-markets and anti-stupidity. So basically I'm anti-NCAA.

Now it's election day and y'all seemed excited about a special OKTC election mailbag when I asked about it on Twitter last night.

So here we go.

You'll all hate me by the end.

A lot of you asked this question, which political party has dumber supporters?

I think the answer is it's completely even.

Which isn't a very sexy answer, but I think it's true.

Basically, if you gave an IQ test to voters and then plotted their political party, the number of voters on both sides of the aisle would be so massive that there would be no discernible difference in intelligence between Democrats or Republicans. That's especially true when the elections are so close. Basically 50 percent of people are going to vote for Obama and 50 percent will vote for Romney.

No matter who you support, large percentages of both electorates are complete idiots.

I know it's fun to pretend that the other political party is stupid, but your party is just as stupid.

Statistically, the dumbest people of all are the least likely to vote. Which is why I've always thought that 100% of people voting would be so the worst thing that could happen to this country. If you think political campaigns are dumb now, imagine if the dumbest 30% who don't vote now were suddenly voting?

Oh. My. Goodness.

Verne Lundquist chortle  

Rob S. writes:

"Lots of people vote based on one issue and one issue alone. What's the dumbest single issue to base your vote on?"

I love single issue voters because of all the complicated things going on in the world, they've boiled down their Presidential decision based on one relatively insignificant issue.

Single issue voters are the absolute dumbest voters on earth.

Here's my top three dumbest single issue voters:

1. Gay marriage

This is by far the dumbest single issue voter.

It actually makes my head hurt to consider how many millions of people vote based on this issue either way. Of all the things that are going on in the world, you choose your president based on gay rights? This is especially ridiculous since the vast majority of these single issue voters who are worried about gay marriage don't even know a gay person. Listen here, divorced Alabama fan living in a trailer in Opp, Alabama, the gays aren't going to do anything to you at all.

You've devalued your marriage by getting thrice-divorced. 

All they can do is be just as bad at getting married as you are.   

It actually makes more sense for gay people to make their decision based on this issue alone, but even for gay people I think it's stupid to boil down your political life to one issue. Are you defined exclusively by your sexuality? I'd hope not. (Unless Kate Upton is bi-sexual. In which case I'm all for it).

2. Abortion, pro or con

You're all stupid.

All of you.

On both sides.

3. Guns

No one is taking your guns!

Ever.

Why are you gun people so afraid of this? You can't protect yourself with guns from the government. If the government really wanted to kill any of us right now, they could wipe us out immediately with a missile attack. The 64 guns you have won't make a difference against a drone attack. You know why the government can't do this? Because of the Constitution. I appreciate the fact that you like to kill a deer every now and then and have three years of beanie weenie's saved up for the zombie apocalypse, but no one is touching your guns.

Can you please vote based on something else?

Having said all this, I would become a single issue voter if a presidential candidate would advocate for legalizing online sports wagers.

Ward Black:

"Fantasy draft the presidents, 1-10."

Okay, this is a tough question because am I drafting them for present day Presidency, like could we plug in Thomas Jefferson to solve the entitlement crisis, or am I just drafting them based on my opinion of their historical ability?

I'm going to do the latter because do we really think that George Washington is going to take over office and be great at combating cyberterrorism? Do we really think that Lincoln would get re-elected in a television era? Dude was ugly as hell.

1. Abraham Lincoln

I named my son after him so I'm clearly biased here.

2. George Washington

He invented everything about the Presidency and didn't become a dictator or ruler for life when he clearly could have done so.

3. Thomas Jefferson

Look out Halle Berry.  

4. Andrew Jackson

The only president to beat up an attempted assassin.

How bad ass is this?

5. FDR  

He did it all. The single best argument out there for no term limits.

6. Harry Truman

I think Truman would be more entertaining now than he was in the 1940's.

7. Teddy Roosevelt

The original Chuck Norris.

8. Bill Clinton

If there are no term limits, Clinton might be running for his sixth term right now.

9. Ronald Reagan

Our funniest president. He'd play even better in today's social media era.

10.  JFK

The great unanswered question, if Lee Harvey Oswald didn't kill JFK would syphilis?

That Dude Tweets:

"If you ran for president, who would you select as your running mate?"

Charles Barkley.

If he declined, Verne Lundquist.

(Chortle)

Jake Snyder:

"More entertaining president: Derek Dooley or buttchugging lawyer?"

I think the buttchugging lawyer would be more entertaining because he clearly has awful understanding of the modern media era. Anyone who thought the buttchugging press conference was a good idea is just so tone deaf it's otherwordly. Can you imagine what else he'd do? Is there any limit to how stupid his decisions could actually be? I don't think so.

I actually think Dooley would be better as a president than he has been as a football coach. Of course the standard is not that high, Dooley has been awful as a football coach, but I think he'd do fine as a president. I mean, a large part of being president is just looking like the president. Dooley has Mitt Romney hair, a folksy Southern accent, and he tells jokes that play well to large parts of the audience. Hell, if there were no games actually played Dooley would be Bear Bryant.  

Nathan Johnston Tweets:

"Who would have a better scandal: Romney or Obama and what? (We aren't talking politics here, I mean sex/drugs/etc)."

I think Romney would be the most boring president we've ever had. Like Jimmy Carter without the lust in his heart. Screw alcohol, the guy doesn't even drink caffeine. So if Romney became president what you'd have to be gambling on is whether or not he has some deep, dark secret from when he was younger. For instance, what are the odds that Romney has a love child from his Mormon missionary days? Probably low, but wouldn't that be an outstanding scandal? If Romney had a French daughter from a Parisian fling in his early 20's?   

Also, what if Romney had another wife before Anne? If it came out that Romney had a plural marriage like on "Big Love." this would be outstanding.

As is, Romney seems like he's been boring since he was 18 and I just see no possibility of any scandal at all. 

Obama may be even less likely to have a big scandal since he's been completely scandal-free in his first term. Leaving aside a Bill Clinton-like affair in the second term, how often do presidents create huge scandals in their second terms after not getting in trouble at all during the first term? I just don't see an outside politics scandal happening with Obama. Everything he's ever done in his past has already been exhaustively reviewed by the press. So you assume there are no real surprises. The only real scandal I can see Obama getting involved in is sports related. Like, it wouldn't surprise me if Obama had an offshore account somewhere and had been secretly betting on the Chicago Bulls, Chicago White Sox and Chicago Bears for the past ten years.

That violates federal law and given how hyper-partisan everything is, he'd probably get impeached for this.  

Neither Michelle Obama nor Anne Romney seem all that dramatic either so it seems unlikely that either is going to cause a stir.  

Basically, I think there's almost a 0% chance of real scandal here.  

Cain Young tweets:

"If NBC rolls out Tom Brokaw tonight, shouldn't he be obligated to don a president's mask & make prediction like Corso?"

This is a great idea.

Most political coverage is way too boring. (In fact, I'm interested to see whether most political coverage is even necessary in the age of Twitter. Don't you think every bit of news will break on Twitter long before it finds its way to television? I think there's a 100% chance that people on Twitter will know who the President is before the people watching on television at home).

James Carville would be great in the Lee Corso role.

Joel Frey Tweets:

"How sad is it that our country considers the BCS a greater travesty to democracy than the Electoral College?"

Sad trombone.

Even sadder is that most people still have no idea how the electoral college works.

This is a good point though. The BCS gets destroyed for its stupidity and doesn't really matter that much in the grand scheme of things. On the other hand thanks to the antiquated electoral college, no one on either coast really matters that much outside of voters in Florida and Virginia. There are only eight or nine states that really matter. Ultimately there are about 100,000 people in Ohio that are going to decide this election. It would have been more cost-effective for both campaigns to just try and pay those 100,000 voters. The campaign has cost billions of dollars. Each of these voters could have made a year's salary or more by just selling their votes. 

The campaigns are getting so advanced I'm halfway convinced that future elections are going to come down to one 48 year old single guy in Athens, Ohio. 

Both campaigns are just going to wine and dine this lone undecided voter. 

This is our future. 

Prepare for it.  

@nysportsguy Tweets:

"Is it wrong to vote for the people you think would do the best during the zombie apocolypse?"

No.

That's why I'm voting for Bear Grylls.

Josh Shearin Tweets:

"Am I the only one that thinks Romney's wife is kinda hot?"

No, she is kind of hot. Especially for a woman over sixty.

Potentially, hotter than she was in 1969 when they got married.

By the way, this is why women hate men. I think most women would agree that Mitt Romney is better looking now than he was in his mid-20's.

Jay Williams Tweets:

"If Obama came out tonight and said he would issue an executive order firing Dooley and hiring Gruden, could he win TN?"

I think so, yes.

Obama lost Tennessee in 2008 by 391,741 votes.

Assume the 2012 margin will be relatively similar.

So the question you're basically asking is this, would 195,871 Tennessee fans switch their votes to get Jon Gruden in Tennessee.

This is a no brainer.

I think there's a 100% certainty he'd win the state.

Robin Hamill Tweets:

"If Obama promised Texas A&M would play Texas in the Cotton Bowl, could he actually win this Republican state?"

This is a tougher call because there was a 950,695 votes between McCain and Obama in 2008. I know a ton of Texas A&M fans would love to see this game, but are Texas fans as gung-ho about the match-up or are they still upset over A&M joining the superior conference and having the superior future?

My guess is no, this wouldn't be enough, you couldn't get over 500,000 Republicans to swing their votes. That's too many.

But I'm writing on A&M and Texas playing in the Cotton Bowl later this week.

And I think it will happen.

...

Go vote.