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Ask Dr. Babooner

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Dear Dr. Babooner,

I’m in politics, and not just a little bit.

I have said some unkind things about politicians over the years, and have pretended that I’m not a political person. But I’m so far into it, I actually ran for President not that long ago. And while I was running, people talked openly about how boring I am. They said this to my face, and I smiled because when you’re running for President one thing you can’t do is lose your cool.

I figured they would apologize to me after I won, but I ran out of money and had to quit.

I have also been widely discussed as a potential choice for Vice President on several occasions during the last 5 years or so. Sometimes I actively sought the job. Other times I had to act disinterested, like the only thing I wanted was for the party to succeed. I played the role of a good and faithful supporter and was complimentary to all the people who were mentioned along with me. But in each case I was eventually passed over for someone younger, or prettier.

All of this hurt my feelings, but I couldn’t protest because I didn’t want to seem selfish or small. And nobody else protested on my behalf, which was too bad because you’d think over the course of a life in politics you’d make some friends who would stand up for you.

Maybe I’m just a dreamer.

Now people are talking openly about what other humiliating political contest I might enter in the future, like it’s a given that I can’t walk away from this ridiculous soul-crushing business and I have to keep trying until I get elected again or selected for something to prove that I have value as a human being!

That’s just not the case, Dr. Babooner. I know I’m a decent person and I don’t need validation from the masses, or from the party faithful, or even from the Presidential nominees who I have faithfully served, only to be repaid with rejection and overwhelming feelings of disappointment that I can’t express.

Dr. Babooner, I feel that I’m at a crossroads. Should I open up and share my pain with the world, guaranteeing that I will remain in the private sector for the rest of my life? Or keep smiling and hope I get a shot at the U.S. Senate in 2014?

Conflictedly,
Passed Over, Obviously Rejected, Tired, Insulted, & Mad

I told P.O.O.R.T.I.M. that one should never be ashamed of reaching for the stars. And political defeat is rarely a reflection of one’s true worth – the negative images that are constructed in the heat of an election battle have little to do with reality. As for the finality of baring one’s soul, remember that a man who later became President rebounded nicely from his own whiney speech about being poor and mistreated – one that invoked his little dog, Checkers. In fact, that breakdown may have humanized him in a way that was necessary for his later victories. So go ahead and speak out about the way you feel! The electorate can surprise you with their forgiveness, or their forgetfulness. I’m not sure which. But whatever you do, never, ever mention yourself in the same sentence with Nixon!

But that’s just one opinion. What do YOU think, Dr. Babooner?

60 thoughts on “Ask Dr. Babooner”

  1. It’s got to be tough being T-Paw these days as he’s caught in a perpetual Ground Hog Day. Always a bridesmaid, never a bride? His friendship with my son when they were partners in the same firm turned my son into a staunch conservative, permanently dividing us politically. Given my penchant for all things political, this rift leaves us very little about which to dialogue these days.

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    1. sorry cb the loss of a son is a hard thing but if hes joined the dark side its probably the best thing. if that is the kind of stuff he wants to have come out of his mouth it needs to happen into someone elses er. but thats just me . you on the other hand seek out all that stuff and rile up the blogsters of the tea party dont you?
      poortim never riles up anyone or admits to having any thoughts that would cause harmony to have to move over. being a political rabble rouser makes your quiet moments more interesting but makes thanksgiving diner screw up the digestion eh?

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      1. Thanks for the condolences, Tim. The big blow up came four summers ago when Palin was plucked from Wasilla. When my son still said he’d vote for McCain, my whole image of him shape-shifted. I couldn’t believe he’d risk the well-being of the whole country in the hands of an Alaskan hillbilly who shoots wolves up close from a helicopter!
        The real problem is that I had to say this out loud!”

        My Strib days may be over as yesterday I awoke to an email from the “Comments Administrator” informing me that, after reviewing my posts, they were “suspending” access to the boards! No explanation, no rationale, and no reason was given. After three years of prolific commenting, defending the sane children of the light, they cut me off. I sent out the clarion call to a large group of fellow libs who also post frequently and now the Strib is being deluged with angry emails questioning their blatant censoring and silencing one voice. Mine. They have “conditions for use” which I’ve carefully avoided violating (impersonation, profanity, personal attacks). It occurs to me that I have indeed “personally attacked” people, but they’ve only been national political figures, not other posters. I guess the right-leaning moderators just couldn’t handle it. Tee hee – they KNEW I was winning the debate!!

        In order to repair my wounded ego, I decided that this was a gift from the Universe (which is forever tossing me new lessons). This lesson’s pretty obvious: anything you do with your precious life hours is more productive than THIS!

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    2. I should think, Cb, that that would give you all kinds of things to dialogue about. I have some of my most stimulating political discussions with my friend Mary. She’s a former nun and holds some extremely conservative views, pretty much adheres to the papal dictates, which I find ludicrous. We both realize that we’ll never agree on these issues, so we agree to disagree and try to find common ground where we can.

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    3. Did Tim Pawlenty corrupt your son and send him down the path of conservative politics? That seems to give him too much credit, as if he were the snake in the garden whose golden tongue caused so much grief. Maybe there were others who had a bigger role. Either way, I’m sorry for your loss.

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      1. im hoping it wasnt the other way around. maybe cb taught the art of persuasion and poortim was simply putty in he b’s hands. poortim could have been a wishy washy dem as easily as a wishy washy republican.

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    5. It was like that for me with my adoptive dad. He’d undoubtedly always been conservative, but according to Mom it was the protest against Vietnam that pushed him way over the edge. He not only joined the John Birch Society, but became a chapter leader, and got all fundamentalist as well. By some weird alchemy, I turned out a too-brainy, leftist, feminist, lesbian (or so I thought then, not knowing about asexuality. Long story), vegan pagan goth (sounds kind of like the “Llama Llama Duck” song, doesn’t it?). At any rate, he and I hardly spoke, even when living in the same house. Essentially, I resented that his political and religious beliefs were more important than me and my civil rights, while he never could understand why I couldn’t be a pretty-in-pink daddy’s girl who believed everything she was told. I really hope you and your son find a happier resolution to your relationship than the one we chose, which was him dying and getting out of my hair at last.

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      1. I had uncomfortable discussions with my father in the early years of my marriage, the late 1960s and early 1970s. By that time I had hated and had opposed the war for many years: marching, organizing, protesting and voting my convictions. My dad, who fought to defend his country in WW II, could never see that Vietnam was not another war to protect the US from aggression.

        In the first years of my marriage my erstwife and I had dinner with my parents about twice a month, and they were turbulent. My dad would rag on me incessantly in much the way Archie Bunker ragged on The Meathead. I was entirely comfortable in my convictions, so my father’s barbs just bounced off me. But I regretted the social tensions but wished I could put an end to all that bickering. From my perspective, all that “dialogue” was purely negative noise, and it certainly changed no minds.

        About 1974 my father stunned my mother by confessing that he was an alcoholic. Nobody knew. Nobody even suspected. Dad never touched another drop of alcohol. More surprising was the fact he never again mentioned his differences with my anti-war beliefs. All that patriotic antagonism in earlier years had been fueled by alcohol, and it totally stopped. So, Crow Girl, this is a “resolution” to political differences that popped up totally unexpectedly.

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        1. I suppose a person could make jokes about conservatives and mind-altering substances, but that’s really too honest a story for facetiousness.

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      2. Couldn’t resist.

        I was lucky enough to have a father who believed in my right to free speech more than he believed I should be a little carbon copy of my parents. Of course the flip side to this is that he would argue any side of an argument to make sure you could back up your opinion!

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        1. You were lucky indeed, vs. More parents should have that kind of faith in their own parenting skills and in their offspring.

          Love that video. How on earth did you find it?

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        2. It was on youtube. The hard part was finding a version that didn’t loop three or four times. It’s funny, but not that funny.

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  4. Good morning. POORTIM I don’t think you want my advice. The best thing you could do is nothing. I think you said that you still think you have a future in politics. Well, that might be possible considering the bad choices your political party is always making. Don’t go down that road again and stop trying to help those who are on that road.

    I think it is time for you to retire. You probably have a little money that you can live on and I think your wife has a good job. You could do some volunteer work. Maybe you could help out in one of the schools that is struggling with low funding and do a little to make up for the problems created by some of the policies you favored.

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  5. poortim
    i think you can join the board of directors and be the guy who hires lobbieists to pass new laws making sure that the companies who hire you pay less in taxes and that you find the heads of the various committees who will write whatever you tell them into law therby paying your salary as a corporate pimp and eveneng things up as a favor to the losing presidental candidate you spoke for in the last election. i think if you take the path of being the nice guy who drops out after the first defeat by michele bachman in an iowa election or the equivilant next time you should be able to parlay this into a career. and if it doesnt work out…what the heck, we wont have poortim to kick around anymore. maybe you could take the path of uncle normy coleman and just switch parties. it didnt work for him but hows being ignored by the gop working for you? you may as well switch and be ignored by the democrats for a couple of elections. it only seems fair. cmon over poortim. we’ll igonre you and nominate you for nothing too.

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    1. You should listen to tim, POORTIM. He has a lot of options for you to consider. Plenty of ideas for Pawlenty.

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  6. The Peter Principle maintains that people rise in life until they hitch their butts up one rise too far, at last finding their true level of incompetence. It is sad to consider Pawlenty’s career in that light. He is stuck at the level of someone who is almost but not quite qualified to be the guy who attends the funerals of failed world leaders, people so corrupt that it would embarrass the President to mourn their passing in a public way. That job pays little for someone who does less, which is why I recommend that Pawlenty concentrate on serving on corporate boards, a job that pays well for doing nothing.

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  7. I think baboons should start a “Reinvent T-Paw crusade”. What would his new life be like if we could direct the doings?

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    1. We could send him to B Marty Barry for advice and then there are some others that might be able to help him with a new career. Perhaps Captain Billy could use another man on his crew or there be something Dr. Larry Kyle could do to give him a new start.

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  8. maybe we could have tpaw become a north dakotan and wear boots and a gentlemans cowboy hat. chew a little copenhagen and visit the oil frackers. i think hed fit in no time.

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  9. I’m not comfortable letting this discussion of Pawlenty go by without saying something about how effective he was in some ways. He is no stumblebum clown but a highly accomplished rhetorician who got elected governor twice in a state that leans left. What Tim Pawlenty has always had is a remarkable ability to make unreasonable policy positions sound credible. He is really, really good at that. I want him OUT of public policy discussions, because he is too slick, too unthreatening, too believable. He has always scared the hell out of me.

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    1. I recall being pleasantly surprised by his moderation, too, but after he left office, a whole lotta damage came to light – most of it done through overuse of his veto pen. He left a huge deficit, a school system with IOU’s never to be paid back, and a pretty unhappy electorate. In his efforts to please everyone, he pleased no one. Where I really lost all respect for him was when he began pandering to the far right wing in order to get elected.
      This, of course, is the story of the decade: Republicans courting the extremists in their party to such an extent that their own idol, Reagan, would not have been elected!

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  11. POORTIM – When I was out of work thanks to the economy created in part by you and your cronies, I learned that someone in my generation will change careers (not jobs, careers) something in the realm of seven times during their working years. Seven. The old stat I had heard was five. Now we’re up to seven. So think on that – when was the last time you changed careers? Maybe it’s time to try something new (used car salesman? tap dance instructor?). Reinvent yourself. All the cool kids are doing it – we were laid off and out of work once just like you. 🙂

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    1. Anna, I wouldn’t make the assumption that POORTIM is out of work. He probably has a lucrative lobbying opportunity awaiting him.

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      1. And if he doesn’t, I bet he could learn some swell job-search skills from Mr. Jacque (or at least he’d learn more about how the other 99% live and look for work)…

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        1. In all fairness, Anna, I think he already knows that. Like Cb’s son, Pawlenty is a self-made man; sometimes they are the quickest to pull the rope ladder up after them to deny others the access that they had. They worked hard to get to where they’re at and have little empathy with others in similar situations who didn’t pass muster.

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      2. can you say brown nose. are you aware that poortim wanted his first elected office to be the senate seat norm coleman was up for. karl rove and the boys asked him to lay low and not badmouth uncle normy in the inevitable bashing that would take place. they told him he could be governor. he took it and the rest is history. he asked what to do how high to jump and if it was ok to go to the bathroom. they told him and it worked out ok. a leader??? they know better.

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        2. PJ It takes a Tim to know a Tim, but the info is well known even by Wikipedia-
          ” Election, 2002
          Main article: Minnesota gubernatorial election, 2002

          In 2002, Pawlenty wanted to run for governor, but party leaders made it clear they favored businessman Brian Sullivan.[4][19] Pawlenty then decided on the U.S. Senate, but he abandoned those plans when Vice President Dick Cheney asked him to step aside and allow former St. Paul mayor Norm Coleman to challenge Senator Paul Wellstone without Republican primary opposition.[20] Pawlenty returned to his original ambition and won a hard-fought and narrow victory over Sullivan in the Republican party primary election.[21]

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        4. tim, I think I might read things a little more carefully than you sometimes do, so I arrive at different conclusions. I don’t want to get into a slugfest with you about this, so I’ll just leave it at that.

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  12. POORTIM – don’t despair. Think about how many times our current governor had to step up to the plate before he got a run!

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  13. OT: I just spent the better part of 2 hours getting set up on facebook, so’s I can see more stuff that people are talking about, I suppose. I am, as they say AT SEA.

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  14. Earlier I said poortim might be all verbiage and no substance. I guess he does know something about politics. Now I would say he is all politics and not much substance. he has been able to talk a good line to help himself politically. In the end that hasn’t work out for him as he hoped it would. Has he learn anything from this? Probably not.

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