Utah Caucus and Election Jargon

Yesterday I went to the Utah Caucus.  I went prepared with my camera, which I didn't end up needing.  I had a great time in my first delegate nomination process, in which I ran for 4 of the 5 positions available.  I gave a one-minute speech during each round by the seat of my pants which was exhilarating.  I used to be deathly afraid of public speaking, and although that fear is domesticated now, I still get just nervous enough to make it intense.  Finally, in the very last vote, for Utah County Delegate, I was voted in.  Afterward I had several nice folks come up to me, shake my hand and tell me they voted for me every time.  It was great.  There are people who agree with my ideals.  And they're not all young people.  Ultimately I had to give up my position because I don't permanently reside in the precinct I was elected in, but that was ok for two reasons.  First, I didn't want to be a county delegate anyway.  I wanted to be a state delegate.  Second, the alternate who will take my place happens to be the only other nominee who believes most of the same stuff as me.  In any case, I had a great time, learned how a caucus works, and learned that it's pretty easy to become a delegate, even when 50+ people show up in your precinct.

I really appreciated standing in the politicians' shoes for a minute.  I always think they totally suck because they never say anything specific.  They just say stuff that sounds nice but has no substance.  And in some cases, like Michelle Bachman when on the news, it's because they know that if they take a position on anything, people will disagree, or because they don't know what they're talking about.  But after standing up there saying pretty specific stuff, reciting the preamble to the constitution and referring to ammendments, talking about GDP and debt, etc., and then seeing people get elected who just said, "I'm a school teacher and I don't know much about the issues, but I'll try to learn," well, it tells you something.  The majority of those people are interested enough to show up, but haven't given it any thought.  For most of them, the only driving issue was getting Orrin Hatch out of office, or keeping him there.  Not on account of his principles, but only on account of his 36 year Senate career.  So if you're running for the presidency, it would be tempting and arguably necessary to keep things simple enough that people will like the sound of it without feeling like they're getting a history lesson or feeling guilty or stupid for not knowing what GDP stands for.  So while it still frustrates me that I have no idea what Mitt Romney stands for, really, I can sort of understand now why he just uses catch phrases and never adresses issues specifically or passionately.

Now let's change the subject talk about some election jargon.  See if you hear these things and ask yourself what the crap they mean:

"Take back our country": This means to once again go from democratic president to republican president.  Unless there's a republican already in office...then it means to get a democrat into office.

"Keep America the hope of the earth" means that we'll be a good country, and then "offer" to make other nations good, too.

"Devoted to the principles of America" means I have some principles, but since you don't want to hear about them, and some people disagree with them, this will sound better.

"The right course for America is not to divide America, but to unite America." means the right course to become president is to pretend we all agree, and are all one big happy family. 

"Restarting the economy" means somehow making it work good.

"Restoring fiscal sanity in Washington" means I will personally educate everyone in congress and they will comply.

"Return to the constitution" means I've heard that we're not obeying the law of the land, but I haven't read it, so I don't really know.  I hope no one looks at my record with a copy of the constitution next to it.

"Finally do something about this massive debt" means I'm going to do the same thing as president I've done as senator--pass whatever bills I think will be politically expedient regardless of their effect on the debt.  Standing my ground against spendy guys in the congress is difficult.

"A balanced budget in 5 years" means I won't be able to reduce the debt, but each year I'll make sure the government only spends what it takes in, which will maintain our unsustainable level of debt.

"I'll eliminate every job-killing Obama regulation" means I'll only eliminate the ones that kill jobs.  Which ones kill jobs?  Well that's a matter of opinion.  And by the way, I always make sure to say "kill" to make Obama sound like a murderer.

"I'll repeal Obamacare" means I'll think about repealing it, but if opposition is too great, or my new advisors say it's a good idea, I'll actually consider keeping it around.  Because if I repeal it, then they'll expect me to come up with a better idea.

"It's killing our economy" means Obama is a murderer.  Again.

"The threat of a nuclear Iran" means that although they don't have nuclear weapons, don't have uranium enriched sufficiently to produce nuclear weapons, and have said they intend only to use nuclear technology for peaceful applications, I'll never believe them, even though our own secretary of defense has said there is no evidence they are working toward a weapon.  Also, despite Iranian offers to allow full transparency for inspections, etc., in exchange for allowing them to exercise the rights they are granted under international law to have nuclear power plants, I'm pretty sure they're building nukes so they can nuke Israel asap.  And to prevent this, I want to spend another 10 years sending troops to a middle-eastern country which did not attack us or our allies under the false pretense of having weapons of mass destruction.

"Send troops" means kill people.  It means adding to the debt at our current pace or higher, because Iran actually has a military.  It means gas will cost $6/gallon.  Seriously, though, people will die.  And as we've seen in the last 10 years, it won't just be soldiers.  So we had better have a pretty good reason to send troops.

I got the majority of these from a single video from Rick Santorum.  The first few are from a video of Mitt.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lg6grCd98HM