With Mitt and company surely having some sort of well-coiffed, $10,000 celebration today, it’s time to consider how to get through what has already proven to be an interesting, thoughtful, reasonable, mature election cycle.

Today’s lesson: Eff Truth, brought to you by Ricks Santorum and Perry.

First, a big thank you to Santorum for reminding me why I want so badly to be an Oreo. During a pre-caucus speech in Sioux City, he reminded us just what a burden people of color are with this:

“…I don’t want to make black people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money; I want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn the money.”

To be fair, he was talking about people who are dependent on Welfare and since 84% of the people using Welfare in Iowa are white, his quote made a lot of sense people decide they were going to vote for him after all.

There are some other niggling issues with Santorum’s recent soundbite. He said that he talked to someone at Iowa’s Department of Public Welfare…which actually doesn’t exist. There is a Department of Human Services, but anyone can forget the exact name of a government office that they’ll be partially responsible for dealing with when they’re elected to government office. Also, the Department–whatever it’s being called this week–isn’t facing any fines for not having enough people on its roster. The state gets less money when it needs less money…and thanks to recent improvements, it’s about to need, and thus get, less money.

And I’m still fascinated by the reaction to Rick Perry’s bizarrely-named and ironically-wardrobed “Strong” ad that came out a few weeks ago. In the piece, Perry said that kids aren’t allowed to celebrate Christmas.

While it IS true that teachers, principals, bosses, mean girls, etc cannot force anyone to adopt the traditions of any particular religion in a publicly-funded institution, if someone wants to ignore the teacher in favor of quietly doing Hail Marys all day or tattoo Christ onto their torso or propose a Secret Santa program, or hang Christmas lights or watch some carolers in a public square or put up a Christmas tree, gather their families and friends around and eat too much and tell stories or go to church on Christmas day or donate presents to charities or send Christmas cards or build snowmen or update their facebook status with Christmas greetings or just enjoy the chance to sleep in for once or leave their Christmas decorations up a bit too long, they were more than welcome to do so.

But look, these “facts” are unimportant details, much like the unimportant details we fudge over all the time. Not quite telling the truth is what gets us through our days and weeks. It allows us to date, to get jobs, have friends and to enjoy free food at weddings.

During those events, no one ever says things like: “look, I’m just moderately nice enough to you long enough for a bj or four, then I’m gonna peace out,” or “What I’m really looking for is a job that allows me to spend most of the day on facebook, but to also have an office,” “God, I wish you’d shut up about your stupid blog and your overzealous stance on political shit, I just want to watch So You Think You Can Dance,” or “yeah…you guys don’t really communicate well and have chosen to never work on your commitment issues…I don’t think this is gonna work out.”

And why should we say stuff like that? It’s awkward and there’s a whole bunch of inconvenient fallout that comes from being honest and plus, Americans like stories!

We spend billions of dollars to watch movies and TV shows where people rarely behave honestly or say things that make sense. I mean, imagine if just one person in a writers room half a century ago would have said something like, “Why doesn’t he just tell those girls he’s double booked and schedule one of their dates for the next night?” Sitcom history would have been changed forever. But no one said that. Because that’s boring.

So sure, soundbites are generally made of batshit and we may or may not be on the road to economic recovery and some might say it’s silly that in 20-fucking-12 we’re still wondering whether or not people should or should not have equal civil rights. But thank God for the insane debates. I mean, what would happen if the politicos and the pundits started being honest with us? We’d have nothing to get all up in arms about and fret over. And think of the example they’d set. It’s like we’d all have to start being honest…with each other. Yikes!!!

What do you think about the ramp up to the election? Whose ring are you throwing your hat into and why? Tell us about it in the comments!

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