Libel 2002: Green Party (Independent) Candidate Coverage

This is the toughest column I will have to write this week, because it breaks the one rule I have always held with these columns: the rule of not doing research. Unfortunately, in order to write any sort of column about the Green Party's Minnesota U.S. Senate candidate, or to even find out what his name is, I have to break my rule.

So let's get right down to it. Who the hell is Ed McGaa? Many people know about the Green Party's Governor candidate, Ken Pentel, and even about the party's Secretary of State candidate, Andrew Koebrick. Both are somewhat recognizable names. But once again, just who the hell is Ed McGaa?

Well, McGaa is an interesting person. He's a 20-year veteran of the military, but he doesn't support its overuse, especially for the purpose of political strategy. Good man. But unfortunately, like most Green Party candidates, he's shooting himself in the foot with one underlying factor of his campaign: he talks way too much about how great the Green Party is.

People shouldn't be voting for the party, they should be voting for the party's candidate. McGaa should be encouraging me to vote for him because of who he is and what he stands for, not because he's part of a particular party. That's exactly what Republicans and Democrats do to the people at their conventions. They tell them that they must vote for their party, no matter who the candidate is. Likewise, McGaa implies that I must vote for him, because his party is the only one that isn't evil and corrupt. Bullsh*t.

In the end, it makes Green Party candidates seem as though they're admitting they're going to lose before they even do. Ralph Nader may not have had a chance to win the last Presidential election, but he would have received a lot more votes if he hadn't gone on and on about how he wasn't trying to win.

But as much as I'll be ripping on McGaa in this column, I do like him. Unfortunately, there are some smaller things about him that I don't like. Read this excerpt from McGaa's website:

"We need a gender equal Senate, which would be my first introductory Senate Bill. Far fewer wasteful, resource-gorging wars will result and hence, much less need for warriors." And later on: "Free woman - a 50/50 Senate=Balance, as in nature."

While I would also like to see more women in Senate and other political positions, I tend to wonder if he's even thought out this ridiculous idea. Basically, he wants to require an equal number of men and women in Senate. He never explains exactly how this would be done. I'll explain the problem to you plain and simple, McGaa: it can't be done without raping the democratic process. In the process of trying to make things more equal, McGaa's idea will end up making things more discriminatory.

"Sorry sir, but while you may have been legally elected to office, we're stripping you of that right. We already have too many men on Senate. What's that? How do we choose which winning men we'll refuse? Oh, we just draw names out of a hat."

Oh, and another note for McGaa, who pisses me off more and more as I go through his website: nature isn't a perfect balance of men and women, you jackass.

Also, I'm a little confused about McGaa's conclusion. According to him, since most politicians are men, most men are pro-war. Because of that, women are anti-war by nature, and having more women in the Senate will mean less war overall. Once again: bullsh*t. Female politicians are just as greedy and despicable as their male counterparts. Anyone who doesn't agree should start paying more attention to female politicians. They're not Martha Stewart or Betty Crocker clones, knitting a sweater on the campaign bus. They're politicians. Male and female politicians have the same principles: do what it takes to win. If it takes a war to bring the polls back up or to get more oil for America, then do it.

I'll spend the last paragraph of this column getting away from my hatred for the candidate. Hatred for candidates, and the grand mocking of them all, is what "Libel 2002" is all about, but I will say that I like the effort McGaa puts in for the environment, the vision he has for women's rights and his determination to help minorities get more say in politics (McGaa has Native American heritage). So simply put, he's a good man with good intentions, but some really stupid ideas. REALLY stupid (and irrational, to boot). And like the rest of his Green Party colleagues, his tired routine of "Our party gets so few votes that we couldn't possibly be evil" once again bores me to the point of not wanting to vote for him.

So as I said yesterday, vote me, Paul Ryan, as Minnesota's next U.S. Senator. Write me in on the ballot. I hate everything, and that's the best political platform a Senator could ever run on. In politics, you'll never get screwed over by the guy who hates everything.