It has long been said that Republican voters want to fall in line with their candidates, but Democratic voters want to fall in love with their candidates. Sometimes—like now, for goodness’ sake—I think that we Democrats should rename ourselves the Goat-Rodeo Party, because that’s how organized we are.
It seems like we go out of our way to make things more difficult, more prone to failure, and chock-full of finger-pointing and bellyaching.
We were given an example of that last month in Iowa. Right out of the gate, the Iowa Caucus debacle seemed to herald an election year where our opponent is Joseph Damn Stalin, and beating even him may be an impossible task for us. We don’t have our ducks in a line. We don’t have ducks. Drawing lines is not part of our skill set. Screw the damn ducks, we can’t even get a line in a line.
A high-tech company was hired to make an app to count Iowa’s votes. The company was made up of former Hillary Clinton staff members. Ding! They had never completed, or even fully tested, a project this big before. Ding! Ding!
That tech company is named—ready for it?—Shadow. Ding! Ding! Ding! Hiring a tech company named Shadow is kinda like pleading on your knees for a very creepy catastrophe to happen.
It took two full days for the Iowans to get election results that were supposed to be easily obtained in an hour. Okay, maybe it’s a girly thing, but I do like a little teasing before I get the big results—but (and I’m hollering here) only in the damn bedroom.
In the days following the much-publicized corn-country calamity, Shadow took the time to explain to the tweeting world what happened. Here are their honest-to-goodness true Shadow posts—and my allegorical translations.
Shadow’s Tweet #1: As the Iowa Democratic Party has confirmed, the underlying data and collection process via Shadow’s mobile caucus app was sound and accurate, but our process to transmit that caucus-results data generated via the app to the IDP was not.
What That Means: I’m getting a lot of questions from the fire marshal, so I just want to make it clear that my goal was to cook a tasty and satisfying meal for my loved ones, not to burn my kitchen to the ground. Also, I was paid a substantial amount of money to do this.
Shadow’s Tweet #2: We will apply the lessons learned in the future, and have already corrected the underlying technology issue. We take these issues very seriously and are committed to improving and evolving to support the Democratic Party’s goal of modernizing its election process.
What That Means: Standing here in the smoldering ashes of what was once my kitchen, I am committed to improving and evolving as a cook.
The Shadow Company may have been speaking English, but I wouldn’t bet on it.
Since both the Texas primary election and the conventions to elect our state’s Democratic delegates are this month (March 3 and March 21, respectively), I would like to send out a warning to both our state and local Texas Democratic Party leaders.
Top Five Tech Companies You Should Not Use:
• Masked Figure in a Cloak, Inc. – Company motto: “When you need election-night data network security, it’s time to call Masked Figure in a Cloak, Inc.
• SmokeScreen, Ltd. – Company motto: “Ensure fair and transparent election results using the proprietary technology of SmokeScreen, Ltd.”
• Mystery, Inc. – Company press release: “We are excited to be launching our new digital election-infrastructure company, Mystery, Inc.”
• NPIL Bank – Company press release: “For your foreign-interference needs on election night, Nigerian Prince International Lottery Bank stands ready to help you with data transfers.
• Cavalcade of Random Prime Numbers, Inc. – Company press release: “We have been a trusted supplier of arbitrary numbers to the Texas Legislature. We supply the numbers you want, or the numbers you need—your choice!”
• The Exodus Tabernacle-of-Fire News Service – Company press release: “We have an opening for a new client. We do not use apps. We use large stone tablets, and our golden calves are no longer on back order.”
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We have a Texas Democratic Party caucus event on March 21, where you can register for your favorite presidential candidate and decide if you want to go to the Texas Democratic Convention in June. (Of course you do, because it’s in San Antonio.) If we’re still trying to decide on a presidential candidate by then, it won’t be much of a caucus—probably more like a good-ol’ fit-pitchin’. Either way, you do not want to miss it.
We do like to fight in Texas. It is common knowledge that honky-tonks were created so people could fight to music. Honey, there were so many fights at my last Democratic county convention that we needed a scoreboard and corporate sponsors. Two more conventions like that and we can get the city to build us a stadium.
To get all of this explained in simple English, go to texasdemocraticconvention.com. Hope to see you there!
This article appears in the March 2020 edition of OutSmart magazine.
