Here is for change, or at least a stack of Benjamins

The Christian Science Monitor has a very good story I would suggest anyone who wants a real gut check on politics should read. The article is about the race between Democrat Andrew Cuomo — of the New York Cuomo’s — and Republican nut job Carl Paladino. Then you probably need to read the related story about just who this Carl Paladino is and why his campaign mail literally stinks. Now my recommendation isn’t because I give two hoots about the New York governor’s race. Albany is a nice town. I went there once, but I don’t think I want to live there.

Instead, the article looks at how the disillusioned voters in the country are grasping at straws for someone different, someone who will shake things up. I understand that but you have people like Carl Paladino, a rich real estate developer who is trying to buy a governorship, and whose solution to the “Ground Zero mosque controversy” is to take over the property by eminent domain. Who does that remind you of? The Ballpark in Arlington? Iraq? Torture? Spying on American citizens? You guessed it, Gee Dubya Bush.

Christine O’Donnell, running for the U.S. Senate seat on the GOP ticket in Delaware, is at least giving us some red-faced chuckles a minute. Witchcraft? Masturbation? Jeez, her campaign needs to come with an “R” rating.

The crux of the biscuit is that people do want genuine change. They elect whomever is different, or at least who they think is different. But then the person they elect turns out to be the same old crook  or the same old hack doing the bidding for his or her special interest. It’s all the same Brothers and Sisters. Why I didn’t even know our “illustrious” Congressman Judge Ted Poe has a Libertarian opponent. But he does, David Smith, who is described by political guide Politics1.com as a “software developer and Tea Party activist.” I am not a Ted Poe fan. I think he spends too much time railing on whatever is the right-wing cause of the day, mainly those danged Mexicans, when he could be helping his district. So a Libertarian doesn’t sound all that bad. Smith even has some great ideas, more Utopian than reality, when it comes to veterans health care. How he proposes to pay for these great ideas make no sense whatsoever. Plus, there is the Tea Party thing. Man, let me tell you when you have someone to the right of Ted Poe running against him, it is like Pogo said: “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

I know you want change. I want change. Actually, I’ll take big bills even. Hundreds if you got ’em. I had no illusions Obama was going to bring any major change to the office of president and politics in Washington. I was right. But at least we don’t have President John McCain, or God Forbid, President Sarah Palin. Just don’t be fooled when your Tea Party stamp-of-approval candidate gets elected and gets caught with his or her hand in the cookie jar or with his foot in the adjacent men’s room stall. The more things change in Washington, the more they remain things.