Here is the incomparable Dave Barry, one of our premiere humorists… a guy whom I first met years ago along when we all brought out books with the same publisher. He was hanging out with the horror writer Stephen King. Ironically, Stephen King is also very funny. And, in a way, Dave also writes horror… especially about politics.
No tired jokes from Dave, no predictable sexual he he he, no recycling humor cliches. He is truly an original and funny extemporaneously, just chit-chatting. He also has a great heart and a sharp eye for everyone’s more or less endearing weirdnesses.
Here he is writing of Repubs/Dems in Prez Elections 2008, but we could as well be substituting the names from then, for today’s names…
How somehow we forget what a mad, out of control mixmaster the primaries are, absurdist enough for even the most outré.
Here’s Dave:
“It turns out that the …Florida Democratic primary doesn’t count. Florida will be sending the same number of delegates to the ….Democratic convention as Uzbekistan.
” This may seem unfair, but there’s a simple, logical explanation: The whole primary system is insane.
“Consider the process so far:
“First, Iowa held ”caucuses,” in which Iowans gathered in small groups at night and engaged in some mysterious Iowan ritual that for all we know involves having intimate relations with corn.
“Right after that, Wyoming had a primary, but it was only for Republicans, because Wyoming Democrats (apparently, there are at least two) will hold their primary on March 8.
“Most of the candidates ignored Wyoming and focused on the New Hampshire primary, except Rudy Giuliani, who’s following a shrewd strategy, originally developed by the Miami Dolphins, of not entering the race until he has been mathematically eliminated.
“After New Hampshire came Michigan, where the ballot listed all the Republicans, but only certain Democrats — including Chris Dodd, who had already dropped out if the race — but not including Barack Obama or John Edwards.
“After Michigan came the Nevada caucuses, in which Hillary Clinton got more votes but Barack Obama got more delegates.
“(If you don’t understand how that could happen, then you have never been to a casino.)
“…Meanwhile, Florida Democrats, as I mentioned, will have the same impact on their party’s nomination as if they fed their ballots to ducks.
“I am not making any of this up: This is our actual primary system, except (I hope) the part about the corn…”
image “Portrait of Dave Barry, taken after the Washington Post Hunt June 5, 2011”, taken by Amazur, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported/ Wikimedia