Raging Pencils
The terpsichoric web comic, by Mike Stanfill
New comics every Monday, Wednesday & Friday.

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seinfeld
24 lost american idol

Follow the magic footprints


Vote Loony. Vote Often.

It's funny how, as far as the U.S. Congress goes, what's good for the goose should be allowed nowhere near the gander.

Free health care? You bet. Your representative or senator gets the best available. The rest of us, however, must trust our fate to Chinese drugs as both Canada and Mexico are plotting to kill us all with their freedom-hating alchemy.

What I really wanted to talk about, in a roundabout way, is the American ideal of open competition. Until this present coterie of cronies occupying the White House started tossing no-bid contracts around like teeth at a hockey brawl many government contracts were theoretically open to anyone capable of performing the required function. Black, white, brown, male, female, left-handed, lactose intolerant, Unitarian, it didn't matter, anyone could claim the gig of supplying toilet paper to the whole U.S. army if they played their cards right. Doubly so if an ace or two came wrapped in hundred dollar bills.

Just don't try and start a third political party as the Republicans and Democrats neither want nor need competition as they're quite happy scarfing up all that lovely lobbyist money for themselves, thank you very much. That's really what all this famous American gerrymandering is about. It's primary goal is to effectively compartmentalize liberals from conservatives, a division which makes most local political races in this country over before they began. However, it also effectively blocks new parties from finding a constituency.

Since all state governments, that's ALL state governments, are currently heavily populated by the two main parties they also get to make the rules when it comes to placing a third-party candidate on the ballot. And they're not very nice or very subtle about the forms of discrimination they use or the roadblocks they employ. Their tolerance for the third parties that presently exist stems mostly from their value as spoilers. (See: Pat Buchanan, Ross Perot, Ralph Nader, Sanjaya)

Yes, we have a few stray Greens out there, and a splash of Libertarians, but England has the Official Monster Loony Party, for crying out loud. I mean, those people know how to vote.

The best third party we have in America, the one with the best chance of winning, is that little empty blank marked "Other". If we could somehow crowdsource this loophole using the power of the internet then, by Crom, I think Mickey might actually have a chance this year.

After all, we had Goofy for president for the past eight.

=mike=





Raging Pencils is a massive conceit courtesy of:


Mike Stanfill, Private Hand
Illustration • Animation • Web Design

www.privatehand.com