Honesty In American Politics?

What would America do with an honest to god politician? One that would admit in front of his or her voting public that they actually use speech writers and would take them up on the platform with them.

My fellow citizens of (fill in state here) I am here today to talk to you about the pressing problem of (fill in pressing problem here) that is crippling our state. Now these speech writers of mine and with some help from myself have come up with a speech I think you will find helpful. We’re going to present some ideas here today to try and open a dialogue. What does that mean? Well, we’re going to give the newspapers something to write about and the television news something to fill their airtime with. What does this mean to you? You’ll vote whichever way you were going to already, oh maybe we’ll change a few minds but really most of you have made your minds up already.
Now we’ve picked Roy here out of the speechwriters because Roy looks the best on camera. I didn’t write very much of this speech so I am not going to stand up here and take the credit for these ideas. But being an outside event Roy and I will take off our jackets, these expensive suit jackets here and roll up our sleeves because we want to look sympathetic to all of you hardworking voters out there.

Roy begins the speech but not one newspaper writes about the speech or television station includes a sound bite of the speech just the remarks of the candidate. Now, would this kind of candor make it in American politics, probably not? You can’t be completely honest in politics, not and get away with it.


- Chris Mansel