Alright, I've made up my mind. To hell with Clay and Klein -- they're both stuffed-shirted buffoons. I'm going Evangelista.
Who is Evangelista? He's Neil Evangelista, a libertarian "purist" who is running against long-time Republican incumbent Clay Shaw and pandering Democratic challenger Ron Klein. I have no quarter for either one of those two.
Shaw, of course, is an old-school Republican in the Darth Vader/Dick Cheney mode. He's all about protecting his rich buddies and is a believer in Bush's wars. He once told me that the U.S. military needs to be more like Saddam Hussein in Iraq to get control of the country.
So he's out. Then you have Klein. He's doing the typical Democrat shuffle of "Bush blew it on the Iraq War, but it was probably a good idea." Klein has also been playing up the threat of Iran -- and while he won't say it, I'm betting Klein would be a "yes" vote if Bush made a case for invading.
On top of that, Klein simply doesn't impress me in the least. He's sooooo f-ing central-casting vanilla politician.
And then you have Evangelista, former public information officer for Boca Raton. He wants to legalize marijuana (and all other drugs). I'm all for the marijuana part, though I'm not hellbent on unleashing cocaine, meth, and
heroine. I like my libertarianism with a touch of vermouth and a lemon peel; Evangelista drinks it right out of the bottle. He wants to sell all national parks -- including the Everglades -- so they can be managed by private companies. He wants to arm all teachers. He wants to end social security. Hell, he wants to end the federal government, basically.
Told you, he drinks the stuff straight from the bottle.
All in all, he's more Republican than Democrat, but he's dead-set against the criminal war in Iraq and supports withdrawing U.S. troops immediately. I'm not in favor of that either; I think we should set a fixed timetable (say six months to get them out of there). Klein, the wuss, won't even go that far.
Basically Evangelista, as he has noted himself, is the only anti-war candidate in the trio. And, unlike those other two, he also a touch of charisma, spontaneity, and gonadal fortitude. The Sun-Sentinel's Michael Mayo wrote Sunday how Evangelista lit up the debate last week with lines like, "You've seen all their ads. Mr. Klein is right about Mr. Shaw, and Mr. Shaw is right about Mr. Klein. I'm none of the above."
Precisely. Sure it's true that Evangelista has no chance of winning, I'm going to vote for him because he's not Klein or Shaw, is a true anti-war vote, and he's interesting. Dammit, I am so sick of these hacks disappearing in Washington to play their spin games, ala the useless Robert Wexler. Evangelista's more ridiculous ideas don't have a chance in hell, so we don't have to worry about that. He's also an independent, so you don't have to worry about his election messing up the balance of power too much. And it's just a two-year term. During that time, you can be sure that he would mix up the rancid political swamp in D.C. Given the chance.
