Satire: A Cautionary Tale of the Value of a Vote
Published October 09, 2008
The economy is in rough shape these days. My business not only suffers from a dwindling client base (most of the wiser people vacated Michigan long ago, taking their children with them), it is also being hit by high costs – mostly due to the mumbo-jumbo of regulatory doublespeak coming from Lansing - and continuing competition. Competition is a good thing for us capitalists, but we haven’t raised our prices since 2000. We can’t, or we wouldn’t have customers at all. On the other hand, I’m willing to bet that the price of gas, food and incidentals have gone up since then.
Being a resourceful person, I’ve been looking around for ways to bring in more money to my household. We’ve been bouncing our ideas around like tennis balls in an empty swimming pool. Of course, in this day and age, you have to be careful. Having a novel idea, one that no one has thought of, helps. Protecting your entrepreneurial thought from predators is another. There should be low or no overhead and a high return on whatever investment is made. Ventures should be within the boundaries of the law.
With this in mind, I set out to sell my vote come November 4. This includes the state ballot as well as the presidential choice.
For one thing, I am not impressed by the presidential race, so my vote is blowing in the breeze like a hanging chad. In good conscience, I can’t honestly pull the lever (or in my case, mark the spot) for either candidate. Anyway, since I have this vote, why not make some money from it? My original thought was to make enough to bring both my children home from college for the Christmas break. I’m thinking $1000 should cover it.
What? Sell my vote? It’s blasphemy, you say?
Well, no, not really, take a look at the facts.
After all, politicians do it all the time. Take a look at the city of Detroit. Let’s say you own a consulting business and have a couple thousand extra bucks burning a hole in your pocket. Theoretically you can grease the palm of a councilman and get them to vote to use your firm for the job. Heck, they even approved a guy to sell copiers to the city when he doesn’t own a copier company, nor is he employed by any copier company. That’s just the tip of the iceberg in Detroit, and that’s just one almost-major metropolitan city.
When you climb the ladder into state and federal government, the amount of money a person needs in order to buy a vote increases. Thanks to PACs and assorted lobbyists, a person can possibly make big money by being a state representative, Congressman, or Senator. Who knew that the pot of gold was not at the end of the rainbow, but on the steps of our government?
With this in mind, I formulated a plan to sell my vote. At first, I looked into standing on the street corner with a sandwich board. Everyone is doing that nowadays; in fact, the other day I saw guys from two different quick oil change places standing across the street from each other waving cars down with their signs. Florists are doing it. Little Caesar’s. Condo builders. But we are talking about standing on a street corner in Michigan, and it can get mighty nippy here in the fall. That idea promptly fell to the wayside.
- Satire: A Cautionary Tale of the Value of a Vote
- Published: October 09, 2008
- Type: Satire
- Section: Politics
- Filed Under: Politics: Elections and Candidates, Culture: Business and Economics, Politics: U.S.
- Writer: Joanne Huspek
- Joanne Huspek's BC Writer page
- Joanne Huspek's personal site
- Spread the Word
- Like this article?
- Email this
Save to del.icio.us
Comments on this articleComments
Damn. I should have asked you first. $20 in the kitty is cash money, even if it comes from ACORN.
Joanne,
I have one possible solution: invest whatever you have in pharmaceutical companies which peddle anti-depressant remedies. Failing that, booze manufacturers. My fearless prediction that the sales of both will skyrocket after 4 November.
Dan(Miller)
Now might be a good time to buy pharmas, Joanne. I have a number of pharma issues in my collection, and they are ALL depressed (pun intended).
Convince the Detroit Lions that your vote has an NFL-strength arm and can make all the throws, and even if it can't you'll still get $12 million in guaranteed money.
It's an addiction, isn't it, Dan(Miller)?
Dan, there's an obvious logical flaw in your argument. Who exactly will all these severely depressed people be that you predict will materialize after Nov 4?
I would imagine, rather, that there would be an alleviation of depression, since the majority of people will have got the government they voted for and will be at least mildly happy about it.
While we're at least obliquely on the subject, to their credit I haven't noticed Dave and the other doomsayers threatening to leave the country if Obama wins. Not even Archie, actually.
For your amusement, however, here is Stephen Baldwin on Fox News claiming that he will leave the country if Barack the Blessed makes it to the White House. Not to be outdone, here's Susan Sarandon threatening to leave the country if McCain wins.
I also heard that Ralph Nader was threatening to leave the country if he wins, but was unable to track down the footage.
Dr., after the last election, one of my office girls was so despondent over Kerry's loss that she threatened to move to Italy. She's still here. As an aside, she doesn't seem to be as full of hate and loathing for John McCain as she was for Dubya. I have a feeling her candidate is going to win this time.
If I had any money left, I could scoop up some penny stocks. Yup. All of them are penny stocks now. Unfortunately, that eBay business isn't doing so well for me.
...since the majority of people will have got the government they voted for...
I think all those voters will be very surprised at what they got by the end of 2010; IMO, they will NOT get the government they think they're voting for.
Well, we'll see, Clav. It's looking likely that the new president will have a sympathetic majority in both Houses of Congress; there's a good chance that the Democrats may even bag the magic 60 seats in the Senate, and be able to use the power of cloture to push through any legislation they wish over the objections of the Republicans.
The trouble with the current government is that both the Democrats and Republicans in Congress want things their own way, Bush wants things his own way which is different again, and nobody is willing to budge much. So things don't get done.
The new setup is likely to work much more harmoniously together, simply because of its political make-up. Whether you like the result, of course, depends on your personal ideology.
The only spanner in the works will probably be the Supreme Court, which remains for the time being ornerily right-wing. But after all, that's what it's there for.
Well, Joanne, there's one thing about knowing your vote is worthless-you can afford to cast it however you wish. In my case, I'll be casting it with the full intention of making sure those fictional voters registered by ACORN have to cast theirs to counter it.
Cute cartoon, B. I hear Alberta is still booming but I doubt Canada will take any of us.
Add your comment, speak your mind
(Or ping: http://blogcritics.org/mt/tb/82264)
Very good, very amusing, Joanne. But you should have let us know you were doing this. I could have told you that ACORN only buys votes for $20 or a hit of crack in your area, so your hopes of great profit were forlorn.
Dave