I was talking to my parents this weekend about the awesomeness of the upcoming New York City election season. I’ve never been this excited about local elections. It’s like the sex-scandal election season. The cock-and-balls caucus. The personal-is-political philosophy become flesh.
To my way of thinking, the fact that Eliot Spitzer is running for comptroller and that Anthony Wiener is running for mayor… is brillz. Totally rad. I say let’s go for it, air all the dirty laundry of everybody all the time, and just have a press freak-out free-for-all, followed by a vote.
And this was a discussion had before the most recent Weiner sexting scandal broke. I’m even more excited now. Let’s do this thing.
Why? A few reasons.
1) It is my fervent hope that, now that the media and the public have such easy access to the personal lives of our politicans, via social media, etc., that after a few more of these sex scandals, we’ll stop caring so much. I’m not saying that it’s all ok–using taxpayer money to fund your sexual escapades is no more kosher with me than using those same funds to buy yourself a big-screen TV. But for dear, sweet, 8 pound 9 ounce baby Jesus’s sake, people what the hell could Weiner’s sexting habits possibly have to do with his ability to govern a city? We know he has a high libido, and clearly some issues with letting his little head get the better of his big one, but… so? Sure, his sexual proclivities could impact his ability to make clear-headed political decisions, but so could a an overeater’s difficulties with thinking when it comes to food, or an extremely anxious person’s difficulty getting enough sleep. The big question is so what, and the answer should be nothing. So maybe if we just let this thing run its course, splash huge headlines across every front page every time we find out that a candidate did something sexual, no matter what… after a while we’ll learn to just roll our eyes and get back to the issues at hand.
2) If the above were to happen, a whole crap-ton of societal ills might fall by the wayside. The reason I mentioned before that I’d had this conversation with my parents is that their response to the whole thing was, “The worst part of this is that these guys don’t seem to care that people know about these scandals!” My response to that was, “Yeah. That’s good.” That’s progress. I’m pretty sure that I’m right when I say that politicians have been having trouble keeping it in their pants since time immemorial; we’re just find out about it more now than we did before. It’s no secret that JFK was a womanizer, that Jefferson had babies all over the place, that kings and dictators from all the ages of history loved getting their groove on. Positions of political power tend to draw a certain type of person: self-aggrandizing, charismatic, often attractive. That certain type of person very often likes to have lots of sex and to brag about it. Put two and two together. This shit happens all the time. Spitzer and Weiner just got caught and the press went berzerk. Does that mean these guys are somehow different or should be treated differently than anybody else? No. Nor should anybody who does sexy things be treated differently because of it. Period. End of story. This might just help us get there.
3) NYC already had a Koch in charge. We might as well have a Weiner.