And now, by popular request....
by Mad Dog

    How do we gauge popularity? By how many friends we have? How many times your cell phone rings in a restaurant? How much money you make? A few years ago I thought I knew the answer. I discovered a company called Autographed Collectibles which sold signed photographs. By comparing the prices charged it was easy to tell who was more popular. I knew it was a good indicator since it was based on free enterprise, capitalism, and greed, the cornerstones of our country. Besides, while they sold photographs of models, sports figures, and Hollywood stars there wasn’t a politician to be found. Obviously they understood popularity.

    Politician’s don’t need autographed photos, they have their own popularity rating system, and it’s not based on how many interns are under their desk, how many lobbyists fly them to fancy resorts, or how many Buddhists give them money for their campaign. No, they get votes. If they’re popular they receive a lot of them and are elected. If they’re not they have to continue working in that crappy law firm and raking in millions. It’s a tough life.

    Enticing votes and buying them are two different things. In the recent Mexican presidential election the Institutional Revolutionary Party enticed voters by having male strippers perform at some rallies. Sure their candidate lost, but that doesn’t mean we can’t envision George W. Bush on a platform surrounded by Chippendale dancers, does it? Okay, so it does. Still, it seems to me that if they’re going to buy their popularity, politicians should at least be more direct about it. If I lived in New Jersey I’d tell Jon Corzine to hand me $100 cash, give the other $42 to charity, and in return I’d go into the voting booth and pull his lever, which contrary to how it sounds has nothing to do with same sex marriages.

    But nowadays we have a better way to gauge popularity: media coverage. This makes Elián Gonzalez is one popular guy. In fact, he’s the most popular non-politician since O.J. Simpson. Believe it or not, that cute Cuban cherub got more news coverage than the Columbine High School shooting, the Oklahoma City bombing, the death of Princess Diana, and John F. Kennedy Jr.’s plane crash, and he didn’t even have to kill anyone to do it. Using that same yardstick, Kennedy was more popular than his father. Immediately after junior’s death the three major newsweeklies ran 79 pages of coverage; they only ran 53 pages after his slacker father’s death. And they say it’s hard to fill your father’s shoes.

    In light of this is it any wonder the networks are broadcasting more hours of “Big Brother” over the course of a week than they are the Republican and Democratic conventions? Or that Judge Judy was close on the heels of Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Dole in a recent Ladies’ Home Journal survey about who should be the first female president?

    If the politicians were smart they’d quit buying their popularity and start going after it the old fashioned way—by competing for it. They’d agree to be locked up in a hotel suite with thirty-four cameras watching their every move so we could go online and cast our vote for who stays and who goes. They’d go to a deserted island—or at least Long Island—and eat rats, not being told whether they were their campaign managers or not. We’d watch them on “Change of Heart”, where Chris Jagger would send them on dates with other vice-presidential candidates to see if they want to stay together or have a change of heart. And they could appear on a newly revamped Fox show called “Who Wants To Be Screwed By A Multi-millionaire”? Then again, maybe they should just wire transfer some money into my bank account and I can read a book instead.

 ©2000 Mad Dog Productions, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
These columns appear in better newspapers across the country. Read them while waiting for your vote check to arrive.