"The Dating Game" and Public Elections

Most of y'all remember The Dating Game, a television show that aired in various forms from 1965 on and off through the 1990's. I couldn't help thinking of The Dating Game when I watched a presidential “debate” between George H. W. Bush and Jack Kemp in 1988. They even sat on stools like Dating Game contestants.
That's how we choose our elected officials these days. Does it work any better for Dating Game participants than it works for American voters? Whether it does or doesn't, what does that mean for voters today? Let's see.
Imagine you're watching a segment of The Dating Game back in the 1960's or 1970's. “Bachelor Number Three” is someone very much like you. “Bachelor Number Two” is a basketball player and college senior named Tom Selleck—before he became the star of Magnum, P.I. “Bachelor Number One” is Rodney Alcala, an accomplished serial killer, rapist, drug abuser, sadist, and psychopath with a criminal record as long as your arm.
In reality, Tom Selleck and Rodney Alcala never appeared onstage together. Tom Selleck appeared on The Dating Game in 1965 and again in 1967, both times as “Bachelor Number Two.” Rodney Alcala appeared as “Bachelor Number One” on The Dating Game in 1978.
Tom Selleck wasn't chosen on either occasion. Rodney Alcala was chosen on the one time that he appeared on The Dating Game. How did that happen? It happened the same way that candidates for public office get elected or defeated.
Rodney Alcala carefully studied the answers of winning contestants on The Dating Game, and that's the kind of answers he gave when his potential “date” on the show asked questions of him. Tom Selleck probably gave sincere answers and may have come across as a less interesting person than the winning contestants.
Candidates, if they're to succeed, study the kind of answers that get votes and those are the kind of answers they give the voters. It's no coincidence that, if you place Ronald Reagan's 1980 campaign platform next to Barack Obama's 2008 platform, you'll see striking similarities. It's no coincidence that both platforms lay unused after the election. Obama ran against Bush's policies but, once elected, follows the same policies, allowing for a slight compass correction.
Rodney Alcala, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and our congressmen were chosen largely on their words and not on their deeds. Don't just read their lips; watch their hands.
What Rodney Alcala did with his lips on The Dating Game is completely at variance with what he did with his hands. He didn't just rape, torture, and murder his victims; he tortured them until they passed out; then he revived them so he could prolong their agony. After at least two such murders, a woman on The Dating Game, going by his words, decided that Alcala was someone she wanted to date. That sounds a lot like Bush, Obama, and many of our congressmen.
Bush spent $3 trillion of our money on a war based on lies, killing over a million Iraqi civilians in the process. Obama, with his lips, ran on a platform promising to end the genocide of Iraq. With his hands, he continues the genocide. In so doing, Bush and Obama rival Cambodia's Pol Pot. Congress, whom we elected, is supporting all that. Now they're getting ready to support an Israeli invasion of Iran, a country that hasn't started a war with another country in 360 years. We can end this madness by voting those accessories to mass murder out of office. In the meantime, we can contact our congressmen and tell them to back away from starting another war.
Bush spent $500 billion, borrowed against us, the taxpayers and our descendants, for a “bailout” that didn't save even one homeowner from foreclosure but protected the ill-gotten gains of Wall Street banksters, with no transparency or accountability. Obama multiplied that amount until it totaled several trillion dollars. Congress approved all that. We should hold our congressmen accountable by voting them out of office. Don't forget that there's a presidential election in another two years.
Recently, Congress approved a bill that's supposedly for “affordable health care.” It doesn't make health care affordable for even one American, but it enriches Big Pharma and insurance companies by trillions of dollars over the next ten years, at our expense. Congress, whom we elected, approved all that. Click to see how your senators and congressman voted.
If we base our electoral decisions on what our congressmen tell us in the heat of a campaign, we'll deserve more of the same. Check up on your congressman and senators and see how they voted on the issues that most matter to you. If you're still in doubt, vote him out.