Fresh off their , Republican Senate candidate Linda McMahon and Democratic Senate candidate Chris Murphy have already began the predictable attacks on each other.
Murphy is calling McMahon a person who only cares about herself and the rich, and McMahon is saying Murphy is a career politician who doesn’t know how real jobs are created. Why do I get this sneaking suspicion that I could write every quote the two will say about each other ahead of time for the next four months, and basically be 100 percent accurate?
That’s why I have a suggestion, not as reporter or an editor or anything more than just a normal guy who sees all this go on. I would love to see McMahon and Murphy finally settle it once and for all, in one of McMahon’s wrestling rings, surrounded by a steel cage.
I know, the reaction to that is going to be that’s a pretty lame joke and really pretty stupid. But please, give me a second to explain.
There is no better metaphor for politics than professional wrestling, to the point that any great wrestler (minus the steroids) would most likely make a great politician, and vice-versa. They both are about repeating one-liners at Ad nauseam, promoting oneself by any means necessary and most of all, faking it all times.
You see, when the wrestler gets a microphone, depending on if it is a good guy or a bad guy, you pretty much have a good idea of what they are going to say. They are going to promote themselves, make fun of their opponent and then finish with their trademark one-liner.
Sound familiar? It should, because an interview with (almost) every politician goes the exact same way. Depending on if they are a Democrat or a Republican, you can guess exactly what they are going to say, including how they will taunt their opponent, and then they will finish with their trademark one-liner.
It almost gets to the point that I wonder if being a political candidate requires any real thinking at all, other than reading off the script some man in some dark room is writing. For Democrats, talk about how we need to protect the financially insolvent social programs and suggest a few more, how you are “for the working class” and how Republicans don’t care about poor people and how the only thing they really care about is having rich people not pay taxes.
For the Republicans, talk about how important it is to protect the financially insolvent defense budget and how we need more, make a vague reference to cutting something, say how America needs “real people who understand the economy” and point out that Democrats only care about destroying all innovation and turning this country into a socialized nanny-state.
And there you go, and then us in our respective parties cheer the one side and boo the other. Everybody who happens to be in your same party is a smart guy who really knows what is going on in this country, and everybody who is in the other party is either a brainless moron, completely evil or a benefactor of said nanny state.
This brings me back to my original suggestion. Since we can all predict every line that will be brought forth in every commercial, debate, interview, etc. by both candidates, can’t we please have something more interesting? Isn’t America, if nothing else, the land of great entertainment? Can’t we finally have something break the mold?
So here’s my where my suggestion comes in. You could watch two full-grown adults, pretending to duke it out and taunting each other like school-ground bullies with dozens of the media documenting every move, fighting for the heavyweight championship of Connecticut.
Either that or you could watch the steel cage match. You pick.
