I don't always write topical posts, but when I do, it's because there's a guy in a tinfoil hat running for governor...

Okay, slight exaggeration about the tinfoil hat, but unless you got to read the same candidate statements as I did in this election, you may be blissfully unaware of the sheer number of total crackpots running for public office.

For those of you non-Californians, lemme ‘splain. June 5th was the California Statewide Direct Primary Election. In a nutshell, the purpose of a primary election is to narrow the field of candidates so that parties can put forth their most-voted-for candidate in the ‘for real’ election later on. Basically, it’s like having a meeting about a meeting. I know that makes it sound like I think primaries are a waste of time — I don’t. Trust me. The basket cases desperately need to be weeded out.

I vote absentee, which means that my ballot is sent to me ahead of time and I mail it back or return it to the appropriate location by election day. I choose to vote absentee because a) it made life a lot simpler in college, b) I don’t have to take time off of work to go vote (even though I am allowed to), and c) I like to be able to sit down and devote some actual time to studying the information sent to me so that I can base my vote on my understanding of the material et-civic-duty-cetera.

So anyway, I was sitting on the sofa one evening last week attending to my ballot, and, as is always the case, laughing hysterically at the candidate statements in the Voter Information Guide. Well, some of them. Others just made me cringe. In any case, there were some absolute gems this time around, and they were too good not to share — paraphrased, of course.

There is a candidate for state senator who used his entire allotted statement word count to warn everyone about the dangers of 5G wireless radiation — citing Google search results as evidence for his platform. Which is simply the desire to rid the world of the Big Bad Wireless Companies and their Deadly Radiation. Which is the sum total of said platform, because that’s what being a state senator is all about, apparently.

Several candidates had statements in a For/Against format: “Yes to God, baseball, and Mom’s apple pie! No to Big Business, taxes, and Federal involvement in State government!” or, “I am for Universal Everything and against Capitalist Greed!” Good for you. None of that tells me anything about your qualifications for much of anything. Pass.

There were the usual far-right and far-left candidates on offer — different enough from each other in their far-ness, but definitely all scoring high on the Whackadoodle Scale. There was a Green Party candidate whose statement was a line of poetry:

“Teach your children calculus
And keep the planet safe
Or feathered stones and empty bowls
Will also be their fate”

I can’t for the life of me figure out if this is his own, or something embedded in the Green Party Pledge, but either way, it’s cryptic as fuck. On the other side of things were the usual WASP-y old white guys, one of whom seems to think that transgenderism is a mental illness and that exposing children to this idea as something normal and not to be judged is “a very sick attack upon children and a form of child molestation.” Okay, we get it, you’re not a big fan of the LGBTQA++ community, but don’t you think that’s taking it a liiiiiiiiiiiiiittle far? Like, maybe all-the-way-to-Saturn too far? I’d be willing to bet that this sad old codger has driven his entire family away with this nonsense. You got automatic entry into the Angry Old White Guy Club by virtue of your birth, dude. Relax.

(Or maybe he’s just so far in denial about the fact that in college he and his buddies got wasted one night and found out that he looks fantastic in Carmen Miranda getup that he feels the need to spout hatred and bile at the world out of shame. That’s… sad, actually. Come on, guy. Everyone loves a person in a fruit hat.)

To say that I base my voting decisions on the apparent sanity (or in some cases, insanity) of the candidate would be accurate. Honestly, it makes voting easier because once you vet the crazies there are only about six candidates left to choose from. Although the vetting process is made entertaining by these delightful people who I suppose are well-intentioned but mostly just make themselves and their parties look like complete dumb bunnies.

And one final note — this one on the photos accompanying these statements — apparently the morticians union is benefiting greatly from all political parties, because I’ve been to a whole slew of open casket funerals in my life, and the aesthetic is unmistakable.