OPINION: Campaigning for president is a protracted and torturous slog through a fiery burrow of abuse, attacks, speculation, condemnation, vituperation, ignominy, pettiness, lies, false accusations, and humiliation. Bad stuff happens, too.
Imagine standing in front of a crowd of people looking at you with a mixture of blind faith and undisguised loathing. (Handshake.) Some of them believe that you will bring about momentous changes in their lives. (Handshake.) Others wouldn’t be sorry if you suffered a stroke and died right there in the middle of an acrimonious Q&A session with the press. (Handshake.)
Running for President of the United States is a long drawn-out marathon dance with the capacity to sap the soul and drain the brain. (Handshake.) There are daily ups and downs, highs and lows, ins and outs. (Handshake.) There are people and proceedings that can be important, meaningless, critical, silly, significant, or frivolous. (Handshake.) There are photo-ops, staged events, and an imperative need for nearly-instantaneous reactions to the events and statements coming from the other campaigns. (Handshake.)
There are big speeches, little asides, prepared remarks, and impromptu comments. (Handshake.) There are on-the-record and on-background queries and replies and jokes and statements and slipups and bon mots and stammers and quips, slips and gaffes, and the whole convoluted story will be pounding away at the news cycles for weeks. (Handshake.)
And every single day there will be a constant ongoing continually repetitive action: people (Handshake) reaching (Handshake) out (Handshake) for (Handshake) a (Handshake).
It’s a boring but gripping part of the political process. There are firm handshakes, limp ones, wet ones, dry ones. There are people who clasp, squeeze, pump, double-grab, and hold on. And the candidates have to spend a small fortune on ice packs, heat treatments, lotions, potions, and salves after every day of pressing the flesh.
More Popular, More Pain
This hand-to-hand campaigning is a grim fact of life for every political contender. It doesn’t matter if the candidate is a scummy demagogue like Ted Cruz, a mental defective like Rand Paul, a shameless con artist like Mike Huckabee, a befuddled liar like Jeb Bush, a plastic toady like Marco Rubio, a decent centrist like Hillary Clinton, or the potential savior of the free world like Bernie Sanders — they all have to keep offering their paw for a (Handshake).
Left Handshake
If you find yourself in a gaggle of people meeting Hillary or Bernie on the long, long, long, long campaign trail, do them a favor: offer to shake their left hand instead of their right hand. That way, those of us on the correct side of history can signal our difference visually while saving the candidate’s right hand at the same time.
Oh sure, I realize that in some parts of the Middle East a left-armed handshake is considered unclean. But hey, we’re not in any part of the Middle East, and Americans’ hygiene — even in the moron-majority states — is enough above the world average to remove any problems in this regard.
Giving a momentary break to the decent people in the race with a southpaw shake is the least you can do. And besides, Hillary or Bernie will need a strong right hand once elected — to sign legislation (if good people become a majority in Congress) or to issue veto statements (if the country is stupid enough to retain a Rethuglican congressional majority).
In the meantime, come on, people — let’s do the right thing and show a little LeftLove.
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This opinion piece is Copr. © 2015 by John Scott G and originally published on eNewsChannels.com – a publication of Neotrope® – all commercial and reprint rights reserved. Some elements use satire to make a point, and not all references to anonymous people or fictional characters should be assumed to be based on fact. Illustrations by and © JSG. Opinions expressed are solely those of the author.
Read more from JSG at: https://enewschannels.com/author/scott-g-the-g-man/ .
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