"...if Ah can have yer hand..."

Some days, in this Strange Election Season, I think of something to write, and I can't.  (I Can't what? - Write?  Think?  Yes....)


Like when you're a little child and you don't really want to eat your asparagus, and your parents say, "There are hungry children in India who would be very grateful if they had that asparagus to eat" --


in this election, perhaps we must remind ourselves that there are "hungry" citizens in repressive dictatorships who would be very grateful if they had the choice of (what one of my associates at work called) "these two chuckleheads" to vote for, for President.




When I think of Candidate Clinton and Candidate Trump, I'm reminded of a film clip in a documentary called Berkeley In The Sixties, where you see President Lyndon Johnson





saying, in his languorously-accented, wheedling-but-in-a-good-way rain-slick voice, "If I can have your hand, if I can have your heart, if I can have your help, if I can have your prayers..." we would have a Beautiful America Future Vision, or something...  (I'm not sure if the four things he wanted -- heart, prayers, hand, went in that order, but it's something like that....)


And it makes you think of the current candidates -- whichever one wins, they're going to need our help, so we have to be standing by, with our hearts, hands, prayers...


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It occurred to me to take a classic passage in American literature and humorously re-write it, with candidates plugged in --


Like, from The Great Gatsby:


"He had come a long way to this blue lawn..."


("He had come a long way to this orange hair...")




Or could we use the opening sentence from James M. Cain's The Postman Always Rings Twice:


"They threw me off the hay truck about noon."


Except you don't need to plug in anything from the 2016 election to change that sentence, just leave it as it is, it seems to describe current political mood....





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In his LBJ biography, author Robert Dallek wrote about the 1964 presidential election campaign; it had some similar problems --


then-President Johnson received advice to the effect that, having given the people something to vote against -- Barry Goldwater -- he now needed to give them something to vote for. 


Diplomat John Bartlow Martin believed that too much name-calling and too little substance were undermining rather than arousing interest and enthusiasm for Johnson. 


"Many people think this a 'strange' campaign, as though the nation was going through a meaningless dumb show.  They don't like it."




(Et tu, 2016?)


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Well, they'll stone ya when you're trying to be so good
They'll stone ya just like they said they would
They'll stone ya when you're tryin' to go home
Then they'll stone ya when you're there all alone
But I would not feel so all alone
Everybody  must get stoned




Well, they'll stone ya when you're walkin' 'long the street
They'll stone ya when you're tryin' to keep your seat
They'll stone ya when you're walkin' on the floor
They'll stone ya when you're walkin' to the door
But I would not feel so all alone
Everybody must get stoned




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