What Can He Be Thinking?
We'll Tell You What
They’re all against me. Everybody wants me out. Well, I’ve been here before and this time, I ain’t going!
Barack did it to me in 2016 and here he is trying to do it again.
“It’s my turn,” I told him then. “I’ve waited patiently and I’ve served the party faithfully, but now’s my turn.”
“Hillary’s waited patiently, too,” Barack said. “But she can clobber the asshole. She’s got the suburban-housewife vote sewn up, and that’s key.”
So I played the sap—oh, wait, I mean the loyalist, the party unifier—and threw my hat out of the ring. Not this time. Not gonna be pal Joey again.
Hey, I love Barack. After all, he picked me for veep in 2008, and always said I was his true political heir, but I’ll never forget the way his staffers condescended. Called me the average Joe or Joe Schmo or Old Hack Joe and sometimes Barack snickered at the wisecracks. Oh I noticed, better believe I noticed.
Well, now I’m in the Oval and they can’t push me out if I don’t wanna go.
And I don’t. Stubborn old goat, they’re all saying. Hey, I read the papers; I watch the cable news.
I call it Sticking to your Guns. Time was that was considered a great quality in a strong leader. Sure, listen to your critics, fine, I do—how can I not when they’re crawling all over my ass?—but when they’re wrong, they’re wrong.
They say I can’t beat the asshole, he’s kicking my butt in the polls. Come on! I’ve been in this game way too long to not realize that the polls can turn on a dime, and that sometimes they just plain miss the boat altogether!
And Nancy! Jesus H. Christ, Nancy! Twice a day that old woman calls me.
“It’s all appearances now, Joe,” she tells me. “Not substance. The public sees you having trouble getting on the plane and meanwhile the asshole has blood on his face and he’s pumping his fist at the shooter. That’s a fucking disaster right there.”
“That’s this week,” I point out. “We’ll get our turn in Chicago and we’ll tell the truth about the asshole in ways no one will ever forget.”
“No one will be watching us,” she says. “Not if you’re still the candidate.”
Then she starts in on the legacy bit, as if anyone has ever been able to see what history will make of anything. I mean, come on! Seriously.
I told her I wanted her to be my Hulk Hogan at our convention, but she said she wasn’t gonna rip her shirt off.
I’ll tell you who else pisses me off is the anonymous staffers giving anonymous put-down quotes to the fucking media, who gobble them up like M&Ms. Get out of here! Those sighs of despair are from the green badges and they know nothing. The blue badges, the people who know what goes on here, are doing their best to rally the troops. They’ve all got my back.
But my biggest fan is the asshole himself. I’m surprised he hasn’t called me up and urged me to stay in the race. “Joe, you’re a beautiful, incredible human being. Please, please don’t quit. America needs you.”
I know, I know. He’s only for me ‘cause he thinks I’m weak. Well, we’ll see who’s weak when I kick his ass this November. The asshole has never won an election yet, not if you go by popular vote. And now he’s older than he was before.
My mother’s name was Nancy, and my father said “Jesus H Christ, Nancy!” so often that the phrase became a family joke/expletive. Nice to see it coming out of Joe’s mouth. Anyway, this is brilliant, and I believe you have captured exactly what Joe is thinking, and I completely agree with him!
its not over till the fat lady sings in November.
Nice blog!!