Hot Flash
By Marni Soupcoff
And Then He Saw the Polls...
Previous Hot Flashes
12/31 - Letter Perfect
12/30 - Baseball, Sleds, and Lawyers
12/29 - Ms. Leo Predicts 2004
12/24 - Posting a Profit
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All right, we all realize that politicians do a lot of posing. Their main objective in life is, after all, to get elected—a task that frequently involves a lot of infant-smooching, flesh-pressing, and stretching of the truth. So, it's no big surprise that politicians will often do and say whatever they think it will take to please as many people as possible. Al Gore traveled all the way back in time and invented the entire Internet just to help plump up his CV, for goodness sakes.
But despite this knowledge of the way politicians operate, not to mention being a natural-born cynic, I was still more than a little surprised when Democratic hopeful Howard Dean abruptly found religion last month. Yes, the apparently secular Dean, who is married to a Jewish woman and is raising his two children Jewish, has suddenly announced to the Boston Globe that he is really a "committed believer in Jesus Christ." Indeed, Dean is evidently so bursting with insights about Jesus that he can barely contain himself and plans to pepper references to his savior throughout his speeches as he campaigns in the South.
Could Dean's newfound Christianity possibly be a calculated tactic to nab votes in the Southern primaries? Is it maybe, just maybe, a deliberate attempt to eventually steal votes from George Bush, who dominated the South in the last election (Florida debacle notwithstanding)? It's hard even to ask the questions with a straight face. Dean fits the role of the pious devout Christian about as comfortably as Democratic Presidential candidate Michael Dukakis fit into a combat helmet while perched aboard a tank.
Just how religious is Dean, really? So religious that he left the Episcopal Church in the 1980s, not over any theological or philosophical quarrel, but because of a dispute over the construction of a bike-path. (The cold-blooded Church had sided with landowners who wanted to maintain their private property rights, while Dean had come passionately to the defense of the as-of-yet-unbuilt inanimate ribbon of asphalt.)
Dean told the Boston Globe that he didn't think opposing the bike-path "was very God-like." Neither, one would imagine, is casually working Jesus into one's speeches in a transparent effort to grab votes. But then religion is a very private thing, according to Dean, so perhaps he's brokered his own special deal with the man upstairs that the rest of us simply can't understand.
The real question is will the voters buy Dean's new religious act? I think the chances of that are about as good as the odds of the following ditty I composed in Dean's honor reaching the Billboard Top Ten.
Dean's a Believer
(Sung to the tune of the Monkees' I'm a Believer)
I thought God was
Only true for Republicans
Meant for some white trash
But not for me
God was just so kitschy
That's the way it seemed
Wind-powered energy
Was more for me
And then I saw the polls
Now I'm a believer
Not a trace
Of doubt in my mind
I'm pi-ous
I'm a believer
I couldn't leave God
If I tried
I thought God was
More or less for low-class dupes
But the less I prayed the worse
I polled, oh yeah
What's the harm in claiming
Jesus is my guy
Southern votes got me kneeling
That's no lie
And then I saw the polls
Now I'm a believer
Not a trace
Of doubt in my mind
I'm pi-ous
I'm a believer
I couldn't leave God
If I tried
God was just so tacky
That's the way it seemed
Organic pilafs
Were more for me
And then I saw the polls
Now I'm a believer
Not a trace
Of doubt in my mind
I'm pi-ous
I'm a believer
I couldn't leave God
If I tried
Then I saw the polls
Now I'm a believer
Not a trace
Of doubt in my mind
Now I'm a believer
Yeah, yeah, yeah
Yeah, yeah, yeah
I'm a believer
I'm a believer
I'm a believer
And if you love dogs, I'm a retriever
And if you're a football fan, I'm a receiver
And if you're into wool, I'm a weaver
Marni Soupcoff's column appears on Monday at TAEmag.com. |
