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Monday, September 27, 2004
This year there are less than ten states where voting in the presidential election will actually make a difference. In the rest of em, heck! You can vote for the Natural Law Party an it'll all be gravy thanks to the magic of the Electoral College!
But what about those people in the swing, or "important" states? What will they do with the strange an mysterious power to actually affect their government? Fafblog decided to find out by a hard-hittin folksy personal tour of each of the swing states from now until election day!  Today I am in Pennsylvania or as it is known the Bearded State. It is known for its supply a coal an Amish an barns which you may not Know are barns. Its state bird is the goosegoose an its state flower is the rock-beaked tortoise. In 1896 it was not counted in the election on accounta all of its electors got lost along the way an turned up in Canada a coupla months later which is where we get Quebec! But how will Pennsylvania vote this year? To find out I stopped to talk to three different people with colorful backstories! Georgia Mason is a retired Vietnam Veteran NASCAR driver an security mom who as a single parent must juggle raisin her family with her career as captain of a pirate ship. She has voted for Ronald Reagan an Bill Clinton an George Bush an a genetic chimera of Ross Perot an Ralph Nader. But although she calls herself a lifelong Republican she may vote for John Kerry this year! "I don't trust John Kerry on the war," she says. "But I'm worried about my job in this economy. How can I feed a family looting, raping, and pillaging if everyone I try to loot, rape, and pillage is unemployed?" But she also has her doubts about John Kerry. "John Kerry's a flip-flopper," she says. "What if he decides to flip-flop on terror and have American troops fighting alongside Osama bin Laden in a bloody jihad against the west just because it's popular in the polls?" Georgia is one of many voters who says she may wait up until the last few days, or preferably the last few seconds, of the election to decide. "I just don't know enough about this president and his policies after only four years of his presidency and his policies," she points out. Convincin urban professional gay Hispanic Jews like her may be the key to carryin the population centers. But as James Carville once said "you can't win Pennsylvana without winning the treacherous, impenetrable swampland." And it is true. Outside the major cities like Philadelphia an Pittsburgh Pennsylvania is one giant marsh populated almost entirely wby reclusive bog monsters. I talked to one bog monster who was still very undecided. "Bog monster not trust John Kerry!" says the bog monster. "Bog monster think Kerry shifty Massachusetts liberal! But bog monster not like Bush's education policies! Why not fund No Child Left Behind, George Bush?" And then he was destroyed by a mob of torch-wieldin villagers. The election is comin so close in this state that one minority vote usually taken for granted may decide it all: superintelligent space monkeys. "Oh, I quite approve of the president, dear chap," says Mittens, a monkey whose brain was expanded twelve times its normal size by mysterious cosmic moon rays. "For while his economic policies are myopic and his foreign policy is incoherent at best, his easygoing manner and facade of strength have comforted me in my hours of mind-numbing horror." Superintelligent space monkeys are usually a strong Democratic voting block but many are lookin to Bush this year on accounta 9/11 changin everythin. "Ook ook," adds Mittens.So who will win Pennsylvania accordin to Fafblog's hard-hittin analysis? We flipped a coin, heads for George Bush tails for John Kerry. It rolled away an fell in the sewer. Congratulations underground rat people! Expect 21 electoral votes come November!
posted by fafnir at 8:34 PM
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