Word parsing exercise

While I was working our GOP booth at the Wicomico Farm and Home Show, things were a little slow. Friday afternoon just after the show opens isn’t exactly prime time for engaging voters, so between opportunities to talk to the electorate I had a little bit of fun with some literature I picked up from the table of our Democratic Club cohorts – in this case it was for their Congressional standard-bearer Frank Kratovil.

What I decided to do for this post was place the original message, one sentence at a time, in regular font and what he really meant to say in italics. So here goes. It’s done tongue-in-cheek to an extent, the trick is figuring out where perception meets reality.

“I’m running for Congress because I believe Washington isn’t working for us – too many professional politicians who put partisanship and special interests ahead of the public good.”

I’m running for Congress out of the First District because I couldn’t win a seat from my home county – how many white guys win anything from PG anymore? Oh, and when I say Washington isn’t working for us I’ll not tell you that most of it stems from my party being in charge of Congress. And besides, partisanship and special interests are only bad when it’s not my party or the special interests I favor – unions, trial lawyers, and radical, anti-capitalist environmentalists. The public good is what we tell you it is.

“It’s time for new leadership and a new direction.”

You’ll definitely agree with that statement in two years if I’m elected, but I plan on being one of those entrenched incumbents after I get the media even farther in the tank for me.

“I believe in an America that works for everyone, not the privileged few; an America where we all pull together to forge a stronger, safer, and more prosperous future for all of us.”

Don’t you like how I play the class envy card twice in the same sentence? By stronger I’m referring to a stronger hold on your life by DC bureaucrats, where it will be safer to assume I’ll be re-elected and more prosperous for all of us who are my trial lawyer and government union friends.

“As a prosecutor, I make decisions based on facts and law and right and wrong, not partisan politics.”

That’s why I’m trying to get out of the law enforcement gig and into creating laws.

“As a States Attorney on the Eastern Shore, I work directly with law enforcement officers and citizens to make our small towns and rural communities safer.”

So when I move to Washington I’ll work with my liberal allies to make all of our government jobs safer.

“I focus on problem solving, not party affiliation.”

But that will come to a screeching halt once Nancy and Steny set me hip to the real rules in that town.

“I will exercise those same leadership qualities in Congress.”

It may take me about four or five terms to get high enough on seniority to do that, but I’ll work to keep a Democrat majority by fooling you people enough to keep all of us here. Just keep reading the mainstream media and whatever you do, don’t believe a word you hear on Fox News, talk radio, or those pajamas media people on that internet. Maybe we’re sort of stuck with Fox News despite our efforts to demonize it, but we’ll get rid of talk radio once we restore the Fairness Doctrine; the internet will be next.

“I will work to restore fiscal responsibility and to end the war in Iraq so we can focus on building a stronger economy for small businesses and families, affordable health care, immigration reform, energy independence, restoring the Chesapeake Bay and improving educational opportunities.”

I’m going to raise your taxes and pull the military out of Iraq in the hopes that the Islamofascists don’t exploit our weakness, that of having only one party in America believe that our nation should be a beacon of freedom in an oppressive world. Then we can focus on giving out as many government goodies as we can to some small businesses and families who we deem fit to receive them, take over health care so that it can be run as efficiently as your local drivers’ license agency – at three times what it costs now, allow all the immigrants who want to come in and give them amnesty even if they were illegal, dump huge subsidies into alternative energy sources that are years away from being reality but give ourselves an excuse to tax oil companies some more, enact more regulations on landowners around Chesapeake Bay and other bodies of water with desirable property around them so they have no choice but to sell us their land for pennies on the dollar, and do everything in our power to prop up the teachers’ unions by denying parents as many alternatives to the public schools as we possibly can. It’s an aggressive two years’ work, but if you elect enough of us Democrats who talk like “moderates” but walk in lockstep with the fringe lefties here inside the Beltway, we can easily accomplish all those tasks.

**********

There. I think it’s a little long for a single sheet of paper, but when you figure out the true meaning it goes to show how much obfuscation there really is on that side of the aisle. Truly, what most politicians say is a series of platitudes, and this was an attempt to meet platitude with attitude. Betcha someone on the other side does something similar with Andy’s words – but at least he has a legislative record to go by and Frank Kratovil doesn’t.

To close out this post, if you’re in the Wicomico County area, you can come see us at the WHFS over at Winterplace Park (just off U.S. 50 on Hobbs Road). Andy Harris is scheduled to be there sometime between 10 and 12, and my wager is Frank Kratovil will stop by sometime too. It’ll be fun, trust me.

Crossposted on Red Maryland.