Democracy in Action - Sort Of

"That is All Ye Know and All Ye Need to Know"

Dr. Hunter S. Thompson

Well, kidlings, Election Day is finally here on Guam, and I for one am happy as hell that it is. The polls will open soon, and the denizens of Guam will rush off to the polls to choose the candidates of their choice, with the naïve hope that said candidates will represent their best interests if they win.

While the campaigns for the various senate seats have been relatively tame, the race for governor has been something else entirely, a completely different beast. Someone more capable with words than me own self could probably describe what the race for governor has been. I for one have some words of my own that I think do justice to what the race has been. Try childish for one. Then again, how about imbecilic? Let’s take the word cheap for a spin, as in cut-rate and worthless, like a toy a parent buys for his child that breaks five minutes after it’s presented to said kid. Then again, crass also works well in this particular situation. How about stupid, moronic, tasteless, evil and wrong? Butt—ugly also seems to fit rather well.

The folks from the Guiterrez-Aguon camp have been slamming Eddie Calvo pretty hard, mostly about his record in the senate as it relates to the fact that he’s one of the richest men on Guam. The Calvo campaign, bearing its own brand of dumbness, has gotten children involved in the advertising. Both sides have wheeled out various wives, mothers, assorted family members, and just plain folk, trying to convince us all that they are the ones who should sit in the most powerful seat on the island. I found the use of both the mothers and wives taking the advertising to a completely new level of idiotic.

Do we really think that these relatives are going to say anything bad about their children or spouses? “My husband has a small penis that he doesn’t know how to use, and beats the shit out of me on a regular basis, but he’ll make a great governor”. “Even though my son was an absolute little prick growing up, you should vote for him.” How fucking stupid do Calvo and Guiterrez think we really are? Do they REALLY think that wheeling their mothers and wives out on TV has anything to do with anything?

In recent days, I have talked to various coworkers and friends, who have pretty much told me exactly what I have thought from the very beginning. Both Eddie Calvo and Carl Guiterrez are just wrong, for so many reasons. “Uncle Carl” has already sat in the chair a few years back, and from most accounts, pretty much did whatever the hell he wanted to do, regardless of the fact that those things might in fact be illegal, wrong, or stupid. By some accounts, he treated the islands money like his own, and spent in on shit that didn’t even come close to making sense.

Calvo is simply a rich man who wants to get the seat so that he can manipulate the laws in order to make him and his family and friends even richer than they already are, and to protect the businesses they have built over the years. You can be sure that “Brother Eddie” won’t be doing anything that will cause the insurance company that his family owns (whose policies many of us depend on for health care and has made the Calvo family rich) will lose any money. Nor will any of his other financial interests suffer if he gets elected. The rich will get richer; you can bet your ass on that.

The guys running for lieutenant governor aren’t much better, and in some ways worse. Two of my friends have had run-ins with Aguon, and have told me that he’s an egotistical prick. Tenorio just looks pathetic and stupid much like former Vice President Dan Quayle was. This was the same idiot I met at an event my wife and I were attending who, after I told him that I thought all politicians are whores (my exact words), STILL wanted to put his bumper sticker on my car.

No kids, this time there is no “lesser of two evils” – just evil. As we go to the polls today, we go knowing that we are Doomed, and will once again suffer the effects of Rotten Local Government. The term “selfless public service” has no meaning when it comes to being the Governor. Whoever becomes governor will line his pockets, pay lip service to the needs of the people, and do whatever the hell they want, drunk on power and hubris.

To use a colloquialism from my Western Colorado upbringing, we are all gonna get fucked and not get kissed. Again.