Shut Up About Your Mother

As election season thankfully draws to a close, I suddenly feel the urge to rant about one of my pet peeves of campaigning politicians.  Everyone from national candidates to some jackass running for city council of Southwest Podunk seems to feel the need to say various nice things about the women in their lives.  I couldn't possibly care less.  Don't get me wrong, though.  My distaste for hearing anecdotes about wives and mothers and what-not shouldn't be misinterpreted as misogyny.  I just think it's a colossal waste of time.

For starters, let's think about politicians lavishing praise on their wives.  Both presidential candidates spent far too much time telling us how great their wives are.  This was received with uproarious applause at both conventions.  Why?  It's not terribly unusual for guy like his wife.  A guy who doesn't like his wife is usually a douchebag.  Of course, this isn't always true.  A guy could be married to a woman who likes cats.  Or tofu.  Or Justin Bieber.  But for the most part, any guy who is willing to move in with a woman, share the sheets, give up all decisions on interior decorating, make an effort to put the toilet seat down, and put an unnecessarily expensive ring on her finger, is probably at least reasonably fond of her.

One of the only things more obvious than a guy who loves his wife is a guy who loves his mother.  So why are we inundated with endless little stories about how wonderful a politician's mother was?  Men who don't like their wives may be douchebags, but men who don't like their mothers are usually sociopaths.  Well, unless their mothers beat them.  Still, if a man's mother beat him, that's probably what made him a sociopath.  Of course we like our mothers.  They fed us, clothed us, changed our diapers, and wiped our asses.  And if she breast-fed us, she's also the first girl we got to second base with.

There's one other little politician's story that's even dumber.  A few have mentioned how great their grandmothers were.  Of course, your grandmother was great.  The only difference between one grandmother and another is the little pet name we have for her.  But it doesn't matter if she's a Gamma, a Nana, a Mam-ma, or a Mi-Ma, she's the one who gives us free stuff.  How the hell could we not like that gal?  Any guy who doesn't like receiving gifts lacks even the faintest glimmer of self-interest.  Usually, the only people who don't have self-interest are dead people.  There aren't any corpses running for office.  Harry Reid wasn't running this time.

What the hell are these pols trying to tell me?  If you tell me that you like your wife, your mother, and your grandmother, all you're telling me is that you're not a douchebag, not a sociopath, and have at least a minimal amount of self-interest.  This doesn't qualify someone to be president or mayor or dogcatcher.  This means they have the minimum qualifications for being human.  So knock it off with your charming little stories, candidates.  I'm not impressed.  If you want me to vote for you, tell me something you don't have in common with most of the world's men.