Author's Note: I realize this is kind of a stretch here, but I think my point's pretty obvious - Americans are irrational when it comes to voting choices

I posted this on my Facebook profile this morning, which summarizes my puzzlement over the American voting public's voting choices:

"Riddle me this, America: you'll vote a bland, safe, boring contestant who sounds like a Jack Johnson/Dave Matthews/Jason Mraz wannabe (over a far more interesting and more dynamic singer with a ton of personality) as your 'American Idol' winner BECAUSE he's bland, safe, and boring...yet you'll elect a racist moonbat in the primaries because he's 'different' and 'edgy?'"

Mind you, I'm not equating voting the winner of American Idol to be just as important as voting for the person representing your district or state in our nation's capital, but after watching American Idol in its' entirety for the first time ever, it further reinforced my belief that when given the choice, Americans will vote for mediocrity over originality. Case in point: name the contest who won it all last season. Yeah, I don't remember his name, but I remember him being stupefyingly dull. But we all remember Adam Lambert, right? He was clearly the contestant to beat, yet he lost to a dullard. It's as if we don't want original and edgy; that's for those who live outside the fringes of Top 40 radio. We want safe and predictable and nice. 

This isn't to say I dislike Lee DeWyze; on the contrary, he seems like a nice guy, humble and not at all shy about showing his emotions. He's coachable, and he does have a nice voice. But there's hundreds of other guys with recording contracts with the same voice. He's going to struggle to make himself stand out, and I honestly don't believe he's got that in him.

On the other hand, this air of fear and loathing makes voters turn to the likes of Rand Paul. Sure, I get the whole anti-incumbent anger; I applauded Arlen Specter's loss in the primaries, but I was bothered at how the White House could see Specter's loss as damaging. Was it better to have a faux Democrat in your corner than a Democrat who actually believes in Democrat core principles? But when anti-incumbent anger means the likes of Rand Paul and whatever other politically naive politician wannabes spewing tea baggery nonsense

Unlike American Idol, now we don't want our politicians to be safe and nice and bland; we want the opposite, confrontational and bigoted and incredibly narrow minded. We want our elected officials to wrap themselves around the American flag and Jesus and the cross. Don't believe me? Just look around you, and look at some of the politicians representing your states and districts: Michelle Bachman, Jim DeMint, Ron Paul, Tom Coburn, JW Hayworth, just to name a few. 

And, please, spare me with Nancy Pelosi or Barney Frank or Dennis Kucinich; yes, they're batshit nuts, but neither of them have ever suggested a repeal of the Civil Rights Act, or suggested President Obama is a Muslim Socialist Nazi baby-killing terrorist lover who was born in Kenya and therefore is Constitutionally prohibited from being President. Yes, it's a cultural of corruptionthat exists in DC, a culture that I think will diminish if the cowards representing us in our nation's capital had the guts to enact term limits. That's a debate for another day. But to suggest the only way of fighting this culture of corruption in Washington is to elect ideologically hardcore figures on the Right, seemingly hell-bent on reshaping the Constitution to fit their agenda, only means your anger is completely misplaced. 

Or, it could just be, like several of my friends have pointed out (and, I believe, it's been pointed out by Thomas Jefferson, no less), that these irrationalities we express either at the voting booth or via unlimited texting demonstrate that we Americans cherish the right to be as dumb as we want to be.