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That’s because the world’s oldest modern democracy has the world’s oldest – and dumbest -- methods for counting votes.  We touch screens, fill in blanks, and punch holes – then all our hanging chads are tossed in the back of a local volunteer’s car until they’re ripe enough for counting.  Then they don’t really count them all, but estimate who the winner could be.

But I am not critical.  

No, what grinds my gears is when candidates who don’t know first base from a first down try to act like they’re sports fans, in the hopes that Joe Sixpack will think they’re just like him and send them to Washington.  

When politicians talk sports, they sound as authentic as Montgomery Burns, a Simpsons cartoon character who owns a nuclear power plant. When he tries to pal around with his workers, he says “How about that… local sports team?”

Take John Kerry, a Yale graduate, asking a store clerk, “Can I get me a huntin’ license?”

Or Sarah Palin, who really does talk like that, gushing about the World Series Champion Philadelphia Phillies – in Erie Pennsylvania, where they love the Pittsburgh Pirates as much as they HATE the Phillies.  You’d think Joe the Plumber might have warned her.  

Or Barack Obama bowling badly -- while wearing a necktie.  That’s like going frog-giggin’ in a tuxedo.  Even Kerry wouldn’t do that.  He’d wear docksiders and a polo shirt – collar up. 

Of course, it’s hard to top the time President Richard Nixon drew up a trick play for the Washington Redskins, and told coach George Allen to use it in the first round of the 1971 playoffs.  The San Francisco 49ers saw the play coming a mile away, and stopped the Redskins for a 13-yard loss.  The Redskins had to kick a field goal – which they also blew – and lost, 24-20. Maybe Tricky Dick wasn’t that tricky after all. 

But my favorite example of sports pandering comes from Hillary Clinton.  Years ago, while campaigning in Illinois for her husband Bill – who went on to become an important political figure – she claimed the Chicago Cubs had always been her favorite baseball team. 

Fine.  But in 2000, Hillary Clinton campaigned to become the junior senator from New York.  She tried to fool New Yorkers that she was one of them by claiming her favorite team was actually the Yankees. 

When the pesky press pointed out the discrepancy, she huddled with her handlers and devised a uniquely Clintonian solution: Oh, she said, what she MEANT was, the Chicago Cubs were her favorite National League team. The Yankees were her favorite American League team. 

I might have bought that line of bull, if she could name ONE other American League team without consulting a newspaper.  Your move, Clinton!

Now that she’s going to be the secretary of state, next time she’s in Bosnia – assuming she gets past the sniper fire -- she’ll probably tell the Bosnians that soccer is really her favorite sport.   Well, in Europe, anyway. 

So politicians, if you stick to politics, I’ll stick to… whatever it is that I do.

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