I Think We Need To "Change" The Word...

The word, this presidential campaign year, is “change”.

First of all, I don’t remember getting the memo.

I thought “grease” is the word (…is the word…is the word…is the word…)

Turns out they made the change (no pun intended) and didn’t think to let me know ahead of time.

Well, it isn’t the first time I’ve been caught by surprise. Matter of fact that seems to be the story of my life, lately.

But, enough about me.

How about “change”?

I’m not sure where it got started. Most buzz words or catch phrases don’t have an official arrival. They’re less like announced guests at a royal reception and more like the relatives who show up on your doorstep when you’re not paying attention.

And just like those relatives, once the buzzword shows up, it’s usually around for a while.

So 2008 is the year of “change”.

Obama’s campaign has not only used the word ad nauseum, but the campaign posters, bumper stickers, big ass banners, et al proclaim the message “Time for Change” or “Change is Coming “ or “Got Change for A Dollar?” or something like that.

I admit I don’t pay attention to details the way I used to, but I know the word change is in there somewhere.

And Hillary uses it and whoever is left out there in the field uses it and with more than nine months to go before the election, we have already been saturated with the notion that this election is all about change.

First of all, not to pee in the corn flakes, but every election is about change.
Duhh.

And you don’t have to be a Rhodes Scholar with a degree in political science to know that when the candidates say “change”, all they’re really doing is trying to boil down to a single, memorable word the theme they hope will best resonate with you, the voter. In other words, they’re zeroing in on you in an effort to push your buttons, so that come November, you’ll push theirs.

This year, that theme is “change”.

As in, we know that you don’t like things the way they are and we also know that you want things to be different than they are, so we are here to promise you that if you elect us we will make those things that you don’t like go away and, in their place, provide new things that, given the limitations of real life, you may or may not like.

But, what the hell.

At least things will change.

Actually, uh, no, they won’t

Mostly because, in large measure, they can’t.

All kinds of people, good, bad, indifferent, honest, corrupt, immaculate, immoral, sacrificial and opportunistic alike have been running for public office for hundreds, lo thousands, of years promising that they would “change” the way things are.
And they know better than anyone that “change” in the context of government is like efficiency in the context of fuel consumption.

A lofty idea that has an ice cube’s chance.

Because on Election Day, you’re not voting for a different system.
You’re merely voting to either return or replace those who run the system for us.

And while any good American would, as they always have, sacrifice to preserve the American way of life, nobody is going to be able to put up much of an argument that the system, however we revere it, needs a lot of work.

And who’s going to do that work?
Those we elect to office?

Nope.

Not as long as a garden-variety member of the US Senate has to raise ten thousand dollars a day just to stay in office four years from now. Not as long as large corporations and special interest groups remain the wells from which the candidates must inevitably draw the water.

There is an old saying, “candidates campaign in poetry, but they govern in prose”.

That’s a flowery way of telling you that when they make promises to you during the campaign, you shouldn’t really expect many of those promises to be kept.

So, no matter how many times the word “change” is used in the campaign poem, the prose of government will look remarkably like the same old handwriting.
And, because the tail of the system wags the dog of well meaning candidates, here’s what we voters get during the campaign:

Vague answers to specific questions.

Promises of policies that wont necessarily put any more food in your cupboards, or gas in your car, or money in your kids college fund or safety on your streets.

Petty character attacks that wont bring your sons and daughters home from Iraq one damn minute sooner.

Debates about “differences” in approach that you would literally need a magnifying glass to identify.

And as the campaign gets more heated, more and more bickering, posturing, cheap shooting, desperation moves, etc, none of which will improve the quality of your life or the life of your loved ones one single solitary inch.

The word, this year, is supposedly “change”

I’ve got a better idea.

I think the word, this year, is “tired”.

As in we who look to those we support to honestly improve the quality of our lives are tired, beyond description, of seeing millions and millions of dollars spent and literally years of our lives interrupted by the bickering and the posturing and the vague answers and the petty character attacks.

Tired.

That should be the word this election year.

Because, the more things change….