Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Dear Joe Heartland

Dear Joe Heartland,

As a concerned Canadian, I’ve got an important message for you. It’s something your own politicians won’t tell you because they want your vote and are afraid to insult you with the truth.

In a few weeks, by casting your vote for a Democrat, you’ll have a chance to make a real difference in your country. Please, please, please don’t screw it up this time.

For six years, we’ve heard political commentators whine about how George W. Bush and his cronies stole the 2000 Presidential election from Al Gore. We’ve had to endure endless analyses of how the Republicans rigged the vote in Florida and stickhandled the issue through the Supreme Court.

But none of this would even have mattered if dummies like you hadn’t voted for Bush in the first place. The most surprising thing about the 2000 election is not that Bush stole Florida or that the Supreme Court highjacked the result. The most surprising thing is that it was close at all.

The country was on an economic roll. Inflation had been brought under control, unemployment was at record lows and the country’s books were in surplus for the first time in decades.

Al Gore was part of that success story and George W. Bush was a former part-time Governor of Texas with a mediocre track record and no plan for America beyond meaningless platitudes like "compassionate conservative." Yet you and your kind voted for him.

When asked "why?", you tended to say that you liked Bush. You thought he was a regular guy, someone you could sit down and have a beer with.

How stupid is that? I don’t know about you but when I’m charged with choosing a new leader, I’m not looking for some friendly, gum-chewing, back-slapping good ole boy to vote for. I want a candidate with an intellect and lots of political experience. Please try to remember that for this year’s election.

I’m not asking you to do this as some noble, selfless act. If you had thought about the issues for more than two seconds back in 2000, you would have realized that a vote for Al Gore was a vote for your own self-interest.

By voting for Bush, you helped hand out the largest tax cut in history to the rich while you received next to nothing. You also voted to start dismantling the nation’s social safety net that ensures not-so-bright people like you don’t fall through the cracks. And you also voted for the most ill-advised, least diplomatic, most egregious misuse of American military power in decades.

All this might have been forgivable if you hadn’t pulled the same ignorant stunt in 2004. As your hero George W. Bush has so eloquently put it: "Fool me once, shame on.....shame on you. It fool me, can’t get fooled again."

You had already experienced four years of some of the worst presidential governance your country has ever seen. And you had a bright, articulate, experienced Democratic candidate to vote for. Better yet, you even had a decorated war hero you could choose instead of a silver-spooned service evader.

And what did you do? You voted for Bush a second time! Unbelievable! Are you really that stupid that you would fall for the same old lines all over again?

"But he’s just like me," you said. "He’s one of us, a regular guy, not like that Kerry fellow."
Stop for one minute and think about it. Do you really want someone like you running the country? How do you think someone like you would do at such an important, complicated job? That’s right; you’d screw it up big time.

And that’s exactly what your pal "W" has done. Maybe this time you should think about letting the smart guy have a chance. You don’t have to like him; you just have to vote for him.

You can’t undo the damage you’ve done by repeatedly exercising your right to be ignorant and voting for George W. Bush. But you can start helping to clean up the mess by voting for Democrats in 2006. You can help give control of Congress (that’s the body made up of the Senate and the House of Representatives) back to a party that might be able to start turning things around.

For once in your life, Joe, think before you vote. Who knows? You might even like it.

Yours truly,

A concerned Canadian

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