I’ll Have A White House, And Make It A Double

With the summer in full swing and a presidential election over a year away, Americans are focused on the annual rituals of playing at the beach, watching bad reality TV, and enjoying a cold beer on a hot afternoon. That is unless you are a Democrat running for President, and then you are taking that beer way too seriously. In fact this may be the first election requiring a 12-step chaser.

This all came to light from, of all places, Facebook. For those who know me (and surely what doesn’t Facebook know about me by now), I am the least likely target for Democratic fundraisers. But there it was on my timeline, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand with her hand raised attempting a beer pong throw. Wait, what? The graphic morphs into the question, “Will you give Kirsten $1 if she makes the shot?” and then the final images of her crushing the successful throw. Puzzled at this episode of Senators Behaving Badly I returned to my timeline where yet another ad appeared. This time Gillibrand proclaimed she enjoyed a whiskey at the end of evening, and a one dollar donation gave me the chance to join her for a drink on the campaign trail. Surely this was some sendup for The Real Housewives of Upstate New York. What on earth was going on here? Was this some fake video or Comedy Channel promotion?

Turns out this was all legit. In order for Democratic candidates to advance to the next round of debates, each had to raise money from at least 130,000 people. A donation of at least $1 counts, hence the lowball ask and even lower-quality video production values. Of course if you want to see specialists of asking for a buck at work, just head to the land of presidential candidate and Mayor of New York City Bill DeBlasio. We’ll pause here so you can stop laughing at the notion of the DeBlasio candidacy. Every Manhattan street corner now has a beggar with a paper cup and some tale of woe that asks for a dollar, and the Dems could learn a few things from their hustle.

Since Mark Zuckerberg thought I was the DNC’s best friend, the ads came fast and furious. Corey Booker, sober and somber, put forth something that could only be described as an eight year-old iPhone on a selfie stick. The background was dark and he had that “the-actives-locked-the-pledges-in-the-fraternity-basement-and-turned-out-the-lights” look. Or it could have just been anywhere in Newark. Elizabeth Warren played it straight with routine clips from her campaign and her endless “everything will be free” muttering. In retrospect it could have been Kate McKinnon’s SNL impression instead of the actual Senator as there isn’t much of a difference, especially for a dollar

I had dried out from the junior senator from New York’s binge drinking when Amy Klobuchar popped up. Spouting her I’ll-do-that-for-a-buck rap, she declared the current administration “all foam and no beer.” Apparently the sorority of Delta Drinkya Under is targeting under-24 college bros who take offense to a short pour.

The last of this onslaught came from Joe Biden. Pity poor Joe, the man that Mean Girl Kamala Harris portrayed as just this side of Jim Crow. Of course his fellow party mates had piled on weeks earlier castigating him for associating with segregationists. The segregationists in question were Biden’s fellow US Senators with whom he was trying to negotiate legislation to broaden civil rights that would benefit all people of color, like Kamala Harris. But Joe’s shtick for a buck was simple—he’d send you a sticker. Now that’s something I could get behind. Maybe I’d bump into him on the campaign trail and we’d shake hands, my personal space a touch too encroached. I would invite him to the nearest bar and we’d hoist a beer, glasses clinking. He’d sign my sticker as a souvenir and we’d talk about simpler political times, times when it was morning in America.

© 2019 Alexander W. Stephens. All Rights Reserved.