I
have a question for you, and I need you to answer honestly.
(And,
since you won’t be sending the response to me… but rather answering
silently to yourself… I trust you.)
But
I think the question and, if you’re honest, your answer may surprise
you.
Ready?
Ok…
Mike
Pence and Tim Kaine are currently the major party candidates for
Vice President.
One
is a Democrat and one is a Republican. One a governor… one a senator.
Here’s the question…
Can
you match each man correctly with their Presidential running mate?
Are
you willing to wager, heavily, on your response? Are you absolutely,
positively certain you know how to match Mike Pence and Tim Kaine
up with Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump?
And
even if you are fairly certain, let’s expand this a bit… do you
think your co-workers and neighbors and eligible voters know the
answer?
The
pair met up last night in the first (and only) debate of candidates
for Vice President in this 2016 election run. As my brain melted,
all I could clearly make out as a result of that mess was something
from a Charlie Brown special: “Mwah ma wah wah maaaaawwwww.” And
yet, I thought of something else…
They’re
interchangeable parts. Identical. Yes… yes… different personal
beliefs and party interests and special interests… different backgrounds…
whatever. Effectively, both of these guys are filling exactly
the same role. If they were jigsaw puzzle pieces, they would have
the same form… same number of tabs… same number of straight edges.
They were both selected in the hopes of providing a bit of strengthening
for the ticket, but primarily to cause no additional controversy.
They are flavorless… filler… afterthoughts of the highest order.
I
cannot recall the last run for the White House that produced more
unidentifiable partners on the ticket in the second position.
When this election is over, you could likely count the number
of voters that even partially considered the Vice Presidential
candidates in their decision on one hand (and have fingers remaining).
Let’s
get back to the question….
It’s
been a few seconds. I’m wondering if you’ve had any second thoughts
about your answer. Are you waiting for me to provide the information?
Do you have any doubts?
Would
you nod in agreement if I told you it was Clinton-Pence and Trump-Kaine?
Or would you recognize that I was goofing around, call me on it,
and say that it’s Clinton-Kaine and Trump-Pence?
(Or…
you know I know you know… are you laughing while shaking your
head, since I didn’t goof around at first and it is Clinton-Pence
and Trump-Kaine?)
I’m
going to stop playing around, since I think the overall idea has
been proven. This is a scary election. And I believe it’s a fact
that most people aren’t even sure of who the candidates are and
how they’re teamed up. Consider…
Number
one – I wouldn’t trust any poll based on this question. It is
quite possible that a majority of people would get the answer
right, but I firmly believe it would be false data. It’s a coin
flip question… 50-50… and even if just 3 or 4 people know the
answer without hesitation, that means only a couple of people
need to guess heads or tails correctly to have a majority knowing
the answer.
Number
two – Building on that, if you asked eligible voters… wouldn’t
you hope for more than a majority? You would want almost everyone
to know who’s running (and why they are planning to vote for them).
And yet here we are… I think you’d actually be hard-pressed to
get three-quarters of eligible voters to identify the four candidates
(Clinton, Trump, Kaine and Pence), never mind match them up properly.
November
scares me. For more and more reasons every day.