Campaign 2014: Florida Edition?

Hello dear readers (mother)! Ordinarily, I’d take this time to talk to you about the Undergraduate Council, or CS50, or whatever happened to show up on my Facebook feed the night before my columns run. I might even take some time to mention Larry Summers or the Winklevi. Today, though, I’d prefer to talk about politics. Of course, it’s more like a monologue or soliloquy than a conversation, but I still like to think of myself as a man of the people.

After all, I’ve spent the better part of this weekend agonizing and debating, listening to and watching two other men of the people. You see, I have a Florida absentee ballot sitting on my desk, and have absolutely no idea whom to vote for as our next governor.

If you are not a resident of Florida, please give yourself a pat on the back, smirk condescendingly, and kindly excuse yourself. This column is dedicated to the folks in the only state in the union where hearing aids outnumber cell phones (not actually true but you believed it), where mahjong sets and domino tiles are more popular than our baseball teams (probably true, but the stats are hard to find), and where the first zombie was spotted (definitely true), leading our brave state congressmen to propose legislation to prepare for the impending flesh-eating apocalypse (I could not possibly make that up).

We, fellow Floridians, have outdone ourselves yet again. Never in my life have I seen a campaign like this. Our Democratic option is Charlie Crist, a man with a complexion somewhere between that of John Boehner and a Spalding basketball. His political stances, mind you, have changed so dramatically that even John Kerry got whiplash watching Crist campaign. Crist will tell anyone who listens that the Republican Party became too radical and extreme for him at precisely the same moment he started slipping the polls to Marco Rubio four years ago. If you believe that, I have a time share in the Everglades to sell to you.

Our other option, though, is Rick Scott, a man who once managed to scam Medicare out of hundreds of millions of dollars, and yet is woefully incapable of obtaining a prescription for Rogaine. He bears an odd resemblance to both Steve Buscemi and Voldemort, and in 2010 spent nearly $75 million of his own money to beat an unpopular democratic candidate by a whopping one percent of the vote. And so our election on Monday is basically a race between Bert and Ernie, if Ernie got an extra spray tan and Bert were secretly a bald, creepy, bug-eyed version of a dark wizard. The most amazing part of this election is, of course, that both of these men have already served as our governor.

I really had no idea which one of the two to vote for, so I decided to watch the debate. Those who tuned in witnessed the equivalent of a middle school pissing match. At first, neither would take the stage. Governor Crist finally strode on, but we were quickly informed that he was cheating! You see, the rules clearly stated that no electronic devices were allowed to be used. Crist, however, had a fan placed under the podium pointing up at him. I don’t mean a fan like Bill Clinton used to have in Monica, I mean a fan that blows air. Air, I said. Come on, people, stay with me here.

Many of us viewers were left wondering why Governor Crist was so insistent on a fan. Apparently, the man needs his balls chilled. Maybe Crist had recently switched from boxers to briefs, to keep it all in, you know, but was getting a little stuffy down there and needed to air out. Maybe he was trying to cool himself after a particularly grueling day in the tanning salon. I don’t know, and it would be irresponsible of me as a journalist to speculate further.

Of course, he might be irradiated, and only a constant cooling effect keeps him from spontaneously combusting. But again, I won’t speculate.

After an uncomfortable minute where we, the viewers, were left alone with Crist, Governor Scott finally joined him on stage. At that point, I must confess, I stopped paying attention and started watching a Looney Tunes rerun. It bore more resemblance to real life.

I was not happy, agonizing over the choice before me. But then I took a look around and realized that we’re no more screwed than the rest of the country. The whole nation is still trying to figure out how to get back to some semblance of full employment, what exactly the difference is between “deficit” and “debt,” and who is supposed to pay for our health care, because it’s sure as hell not us. In the meantime, Social Security and Medicare are bigger businesses than ever before, and in the run-up to this election, it’s we Floridians who are sitting pretty.

Because if there’s one thing we love more than cashing Social Security checks, it’s counting ballots. Just ask Al Gore.

Jacob R. Drucker ’15, a Crimson editorial writer, is an economics concentrator in Mather House. His column appears on alternate Thursdays.