by Michael Kenney
As soon as the election season began getting revved up, all of the candidates from both parties launched MySpace pages. As my civic duty, I added each one to my list of "friends." It's been very interesting to see how these people are utilizing the new technology to get out their messages.
I guess it's understandable, as they all obviously want to be on the cutting edge of new election strategy, but there is something rather odd about Ron Paul smiling out at me from the "Official Ron Paul MySpace Page." Seems like
a nice enough guy, but his picture just looks weird right next to Jenna Jameson's on my list of friends.
They all have pages, and for the most part they use them to keep me informed of their views on the issues. They send out "bulletins" which is a MySpace way of saying mass-mailing.
Dennis Kucinich wants me to know that he's not a joke.
Mike Huckabee wants me to know that he believes in a separation of church and state.
John McCain wants to assure me that people still work for him, including those people who composed his MySpace "bulletin".
Barack Obama's page has sort of an MTV-Meets-Meet-The-Press feel to it. Barack Obama's MySpace people are very very very very proud to be connected to Barack Obama. The Obama bulletins tell me all about how Barack is the next great American president, without explaining to me what he intends to do, which I guess could be said about the entire Obama campaign. Hell, I'm still trying to figure out what he's doing in his job as Senator from
Illinois.
Duncan Hunter's MySpace page hasn't really taken off yet.
Mike Gravel used his page this week to tell me about how he's getting fucked. Fucked by NBC, GE, and the people organizing the Philadelphia debate. He wasn't invited to the debate, and he's positive it's because he ripped into Hillary Clinton about her vote on Lieberman/Kyl. He mentioned the military industrial complex. He implied that the mainstream media are trying to force Hillary Clinton down our collective throat, and insinuated that the connection between Hillary, the media, and the military is not all that tenuous. Very thought provoking shit really, considering Mike Gravel is kind of a crazy person.
When Hillary Clinton launched her page, the first "bulletin" she posted was a poll to all 145,000 of her friends. Hillary wanted to know what we all thought should be her "official campaign song."
I went to Hillary's page today, to see if there was anything new following her embarrassing performance in the Philly debate. The song wasn't playing, and I didn't notice much new in the way of clarification of how she feels about Elliot Spitzer's proposal that illegal aliens be allowed to have US Driver's Licenses. (I watched the debate, and I'm positive she either thinks it's a good idea, or a shitty one.)
What I did notice was one of those powderpuff Q&A things at the bottom of her page....
Favorite food to cook: I'm a lousy cook, but I make pretty good soft scrambled eggs.
Desert island necessity: A good book.
Favorite reality TV program: American Idol.
Favorite fitness activity: Speed walking.
Worst habit: Chocolate.
Sleeping-in time: I feel lucky when I can sleep until 7 a.m.
Hidden talent: I love crossword puzzles.
Last music purchase: Carly Simon's "Into White."
Cars you drive: For security reasons, we drive in Secret Service vehicles but the Service lets us use a Ford hybrid when we're home in New York.
Home task that needs tending: Organizing my closets.
Last work of non-fiction read: "Team of Rivals" by Doris Kearns Goodwin.
Pets at home: Seamus, our Lab.
Best and worst grades or subjects in school: I always loved history and got good grades, but I never did well at math.
Item that most reminds you of where you came from: Olive burgers from the Pickwick in Chicago.
The Pickwick in Chicago? The item that most reminds her of "where she came from" is an Olive Burger from the Pickwick in Chicago?
Well, she's kind of right, and she's kind of wrong. The Pickwick does throw down a sensational piece of ground-cow, although the olive burgers are overrated. And the Pickwick is certainly the kind of place that reminds you of the good old days. Waitresses in aprons. Linoleum counter tops. Eggs served at any time of day. (Helpful when one needs a ham and cheese omelette to kill the hangover at 2 in the afternoon.) Yes indeed, the Pickwick is a great place. I live 250 feet from the Pickwick's front door.
One small problem though.
The Pickwick isn't in Chicago.
The Pickwick is in Park Ridge, Illinois. That's my hometown, and Hillary's, too.
The Pickwick is an historic old 1920s Art Deco theater, with a cool little coffee shop next door. It's right on Prospect Ave, in the heart of this old town. Park Ridge.
Not Chicago.
Chicago's a mile east of here. The border's over by Mikey the Cardinals Fan's News stand on Ozanam.
When Hillary Clinton thinks of The Pickwick, and the olive burgers, she thinks of Chicago?
When Hillary Clinton thinks of where she came from, she thinks of Chicago?
She's not from Chicago. She's not from New York. She's not from Arkansas. After reading her "Olive Burger from The Pickwick in Chicago" answer to a MySpace question,.. I'm not sure where the hell she's from anymore.
The old Rodham House is at the corner of Elm and Wisner. In Park Ridge. It's only a mile from Mikey's News stand too. They have street signs there pronouncing it "Rodham Corner." People stop and look at the house. People know what house Hillary Clinton grew up in. People take pictures of it, like I did for the Quiblit editor.
Nice place, right? Worth about a million bucks or so, just like all the other houses ...in Park Ridge.
I stopped and asked the Mexican guys who were mowing the lawn at the old Rodham Place what they thought of Elliot Spitzer's idea.
"Ahhhh. Ha ha ....ha...yes."
"You're for the idea of illegal aliens being given driver's licenses?"
"Ahhh. Ha ha.....ha...yes."
"Do you understand what I'm asking you?"
"Ahhhhh. Ha ha ha....ha ha ha ha.....yes."
"The Cubs just drafted Vicente Fox in the 14th Round of the free agent baseball draft."
"Ahhh....ha ha ha.....yes yes."
"I was thinking....would you mind sticking that leaf blower up my ass and giving me a hand job at the same time?"
"Ahhh...yes....yes."
"Yeah, that's probably a smart move. Sorry I even asked. I'm Michael,...and you are?"
"Miguel!!!"
"Yes, ...yes....Michael. I'm Michael.....And....What.....Is....Youuuuur........Name?"
"Miguel."
"Oh, sorry."
Right around then, the current owner of the Rodham House poked her head out the front door, checked the mail, and looked at me as if to ask....."Do I own you too?"
It's a very conservative town, populated predominantly by extremely rich white people (myself excluded.) The local brats drive around in BMWs. The parents are partial to Range Rovers. We have concerts in Hodges Park every Friday night during the summer. The Park Ridge Symphony Orchestra. They're amazing. 35-40 pieces blowing Mozart and Brahms and shit like that. The whole town turns out with their REI folding chairs, their tragically hip plaid flannel blankets, and their bottles of $45 merlot. If I didn't love the music so much, I'd call in a fucking tactical air-strike on these pretentious snobs.
Everybody from Park Ridge is a spoiled rich snob, except Harrison Ford, Steve "The Bald Headed Bouncer From The Springer Show" Wilkos, Grant Wood, and Dr. Dante "Dan" Amidei, Physicist, a principal investigator and key member of the large Collider Detector at Fermilab, a collaboration which discovered, and computed the mass of the top quark to complete the quark model within the Standard Model of particle physics; a principal investigator and key member of the ATLAS experiment, a large particle detector collaboration at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN; presently working to discover the Higgs boson...and me.
There is no Hillary Mania in Park Ridge, Illinois. The first viable female presidential candidate in the history of the country has practically no support in her own home town. The are no Hillary signs on people's lawns, as you can see from the picture I took of Wisner Street. They don't talk about Hillary at the Pickwick. There isn't even a Hillary sign on the front lawn of the old Rodham House.
I am a conservative. I have never voted for a Democrat in a National Election (unless you count Mike Royko, whom I wrote in as an anti-Reagan vote.) I am now prepared to cast my first Democratic vote for the next United States president. Any of them. I'll vote for Biden, Obama, Edwards, UFO-Boy Kucinich, Dodd,....shit I'll vote for Gravel. I hate George Bush and the Rovian neocons so much that I am about to vote for a Democrat.
Unless the Democrats nominate Hillary Clinton.
That I cannot do.
Hillary Rodham Clinton is a phony. She voted for Lieberman/Kyl and then drafted legislation offsetting that, co-cponsoring a Senate Resolution with Republican Jim Webb. She voted for invading Iraq, has spent 2 years barking at Bush about it, and yet still can't even admit her vote was a mistake. She said that Spitzer's idea was sound, and then 30 seconds later said it wasn't. She calls herself a Yankees fan...and a Cubs fan.
But it's not for those reasons, and dozens more, that have caused my to rule her out.
It's the Pickwick thing.
What's the difference between Park Ridge and Chicago? What changes in that mile between the Rodham House and Mikey The Cardinals Fan's news stand? Red becomes blue. It happens that fast on the borders of Chicago.
Not just here, but also up on the North Shore by the lake. Winnetka, Kenilworth, Wilmette,....up where John Hughes shot all of his annoying movies about teen angst.
Out west in stodgy DuPage, where my mom lives. She still thinks Rumsfeld was on the right track.
And up here on the northwest corner. A mile outside the Chicago city limits.
Hillary's not from Chicago, she's from Park Ridge, but she knows Park Ridge isn't going to vote for her.
So she says..."Olive Burgers from the Pickwick in Chicago" on her MySpace page.
Chicago is what makes the red state of Illinois turn blue at election time. Cook County, and Chicago are what Hillary Clinton thinks of when she thinks of "home" because that's where the Democrats live. The Daley Machine Democrats. She thinks that after she beats Obama in a few months, Illinois belongs to her, and she wants to make sure.
So she has moved the Pickwick to The Loop.
Hillary Clinton is just another spoiled, rich, white, phony Park Ridge snob. She's just afraid to admit it.
Michael Kenney is a Chicago contractor, living in Park Ridge,Il... home of Grant Wood, Steve "Bald Springer Bouncer" Wilkos, Harrison Ford, and Dante Amidei