Make Weirdos Great Again!

Vice President Harris's campaign has decided on a theme. She's right. These white boys are weird.

Gov. Tim Walz, a nice Minnesota boy who exudes non-weirdness, accidentally on purpose came up with the perfect Harris campaign theme. He basically said that Trump and Vance are “weird”. Yes, and duh.

Sometimes, in a non-Occam’s Razor world, you gotta get the hay down where the goats can git it, as Anoka’s Own Golden Gopher Garrison Keillor, a weird Minnesotan if there every was one, once wrote.

Keillor was weird. I had friends who worked for him, and they said, the more you got to know him, the less you knew him.

Minnesota is a hotbed (hot dish?) of normalcy. The late, weird, President Warren Gamaliel Harding once promised a “return to normalcy”. He set the table for the Roaring Twenties, and, baby, was that weird. President Joe Biden, the most existentially non-weird commander in chief ever, capitalized on a desire for a low entertainment-value presidency, which, oddly, ended in a weird way.

Biden was the epitome of 1950s Americana: football team, middle class folks who worked hard and played by the rules, the crewneck sweaters with the white button-down and a tweed blazer—Biden became America’s non-weird poster boy. Of course, Uncle Joe was and is fully capable of veering into, hmm, maybe not weird, but certainly interesting rhetorical territory. “Spontaneous” would be the way I would describe Biden in his prime.

Millions of Americans got the right to marry because V.P. Joey was running his mouth, fast, in an interview calling for gay marriage. This was a development that surprised his extremely not weird President, Barack Obama, who got dragged into supporting something he knew he should be supporting, anyway.

Joe was also a little voluble, shall we say, at a 2008 Democratic presidential debate where he referred to Obama as “clean”.

That goes without saying.

I once met Sen. Obama when he was campaigning for the presidency in Oregon in 2008. He was clean, def. I knew a couple of Oregon congressmen who were attending the event in Albany where Obama had turned in his usual Really Good Tennis Player performance on stage. No note was false, he was smooth without being slick, and moved around the stage like Rafael Nadal.

One of the congressmen, I think it was Pete DeFazio, asked me if I wanted to meet him. Well, yeah. I was there, outside a livestock exhibition hall, wearing a nice gray suit and all. Why not?

Pete grabbed Obama as he was leaving the event. He whispered something like, that guy in the nice grey suit is the editorial cartoonist for The Oregonian, a very exalted title at the time, in Oregon, in Marion County, in Albany, standing in cow flop. Obama was frowning when he was listening to Pete, and then he looked up at me and walked toward me, smiling his one million watt klieg-lights smile. I felt like people must have felt when they saw Jack Kennedy in person.

“Holy shit. This is not a human. This is an alien of some sort, here to take over our planet.” Which they both did. Kids, take care of your teeth. They could get you to 270, fast.

I shook Obama’s hand. He seemed kind of reserved, honestly, and as a Joe Biden Type myself (Hey, pal! How’s it shakin’?), I found it difficult to get him to engage. Of course, I was probably about to vomit from fear and stress, which can be socially off-putting.

Finally, as we were just standing there waiting for another congressman to take our picture on what was probably my Motorola Razr flip phone, I said to the next president of the United States, “Senator, that’s a really nice suit.”

Now that was a weird thing to say on my part.

I didn’t say I wasn’t weird. I think I’m more eccentric, which is the nice word for weird.

Obama looks at me, weirdly, and says, ‘Yeah it is!”

Obama is very slender. At 6’1”, if he weighed 165 I’d be shocked. He was built like a marathoner. Let’s do the Google and see what they say.

It says 175 and 6’1.5”.

Bullshit is my only response.

Anyway, Obama said a normal thing to a weird inquiry. We shook hands again, and I’ve not seen him in person since.

Harris isn’t weird in the slightest. Not only is she not weird, she’s actually cool, like Obama. She is definitely no one who would have dated you, especially you, although I’d like to see Doug Emhoff’s senior class photograph. People here in California say he’s very nice.

I have met Harris a few times. One time she came into My Former Employer Located at 2100 Q Street, Sacramento, and I wasn’t there. She asked my editor Dan Morain where I was, and he said, well, I dunno. I had just won the Pulitzer Prize (you may have heard), which was even impressive to Sen. Harris. So she asked Dan to bring her into my office.

Now, heads up: my office was weird in a catastrophically messy sense. Like, Cessna crash messy. She was captured on video signing a note to me, congratulating me on winning the Pulitzer and my marriage. She even got Mandy’s name. That’s good advance work. Another time I ran into her and I was wearing not a grey suit, but, um, my Reef flip-flops. She thought that was very amusing, and teased me about it. I said, well, Senator, I asked Dan Morain if I could wear anything I wanted to work after I won the Pulitzer.

He said, “I don’t give a shit what you wear”.

Incidentally, buy Dan’s book on Harris titled, “Kamala’s Way”. Here’s the link.

There, Dan. You still owe me five thousand dollars.

Anyway, weird.

Former President Convicted Rapist Felon Teen Age Girl Drooler Beauty Pageant Pimp Possible Urine Fetishist Donald J. Trump is weird. Like, super weird. Like, bad childhood overcompensation weird. Germophobe weird. Wannabe dictator weird. No question.

In 2016, he picked the most normal—no, normal-appearing—running mate in American politics, Mike Pence, who looks like a Presbyterian Youth Camp Director. Of course, he is weird AF.

Abused Child Trump decided it was pretty much OK that his vice president be executed in the House chamber on January 6. “Maybe he deserves it,” Trump muttered darkly to his few remaining sociopath enablers. That’s super weird.

But there’s a new Weirdo in town, baby, and his name is…hmm. What is his name? Jimmy Hamel? James David Bowman? No. It’s…uh….

Oh, yes. JD Vance.

(INSERT YOUR SOFA JOKES HERE)

That’s all I’m saying, kids.

Now JD Vance indeed had an execrable childhood. I agree. But this dude took the childhood trauma and made it into a career, whereas most deeply weird traumatized people would not go into politics because of it.

No, Sorry. Typo.

“Would go into politics”. Fixed.

Vance has spent years criticizing childless people, going so far as to throw in cats as a target. See also: Cat ladies, childless. Since ol’s JD has three kiddies with Mrs. Usha Vance, who he apparently introduced as a good mother, considering she wasn’t white and all.

Them white women are all the best mothers. Like his mother. Sorry. Just sayin’. I think she is white, amirite? No book without your white junkie mom, bro. Own it.

So after alienating non-whites, cat owners, childless Americans, the LGBTQI community, everyone who didn’t get to go to Yale , everyone who wasn’t a Silicon Valley (I was gonna write buttboy, but changed my mind) nerd, JD Vance has embarrassed even DJT, who is the now the second-weirdest American.

Oh, and this one guy I know.

I am sure you’re not him. Pretty sure, anyway.

Here’s weird: all the companies you “started up” are named after Lord of the Rings shit. Hoo boy. I can just see Vance at a Renaissance Faire or as a Confederate Civil War Re-Enactor. Maybe even the last guy to get fired at Blockbuster Video. Perhaps the guy who waited in line six days to get into the San Diego ComicCon.

Those people are really weird. I am friends with tons of them.

Vance almost redefines weird. The weirdest thing about him is this relentless marketing of his now-boring brand: Rube Who Made It. Buddy, America is one big Rubes-Who_Made-it story. yours truly included. This guy has been in the U.S. Senate since January, 2023. Seriously. And now he’s one flabby-assed heartbeat away from making those Minutemen in North Dakota fly? Huh.

I have a laundry basket with clean clothes in it from January 2023.

Should get those folded.

(WE INTERRUPT THIS COLUMN TO REMIND YOU THAT IN ORDER FOR THIS SUBSTACK TO WORK, IT WOULD BE NICE IF YOU COULD KICK IN $6.50 PER MONTH. THAT’S ONE VENTI STARBUCKS DRINK. WE NOW RETURN TO WEIRDNESS…)

Anointing this guy as a potential president starting next January 20 (God forbid, and no, I now don’t think so) means he has two years total elapsed time in the Senate, which could be a uniquely lousy training ground for the presidency, other than running your mouth.

Which he’s good at, when he isn’t being weird. Which is never. Give me a governor every time. Oh! Speaking of weird, I read that North Dakota Gov. Doug Burghum (I’m still, WHO?) is a leading candidate for Secretary of State if Trump wins.

Now, North Dakota has excellent smallmouth bass fishing. I know that because one of my favorite fishing videos is “NDYakAngler” on YouTube. Check it out. I’m weird. No, Eccentric.

But being Governor of North Dakota is roughly analogous to being the manager of a decent-sized minor league baseball stadium. Or perhaps Fresno Deputy City Manager, which is a big job. Or maybe a Tualatin Valley (Oregon) Water and Sewer District Commissioner (Position 3).

Secretary of State? Weird squared.

Let’s just look at past GOP Secretaries of State’s thumbnail resumes:

MIKE POMPEO: West Point, Harvard Law, started several major businesses, four term Kansas Congressman, Director of the CIA, and complete asshole.

REX TILLERSON: CEO of ExxonMobil, a serious if horrible operation. Nice hair. Looked like a Secretary of State. Called out Trump as a moron. Nice.

CONDOLEEZA RICE: Stanford professor, concert pianist, National Security Adviser, highly effective war criminal. Met her once, lovely person.

COLIN POWELL: Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff. Could have been first Black president but his wife put the kibosh on it. Least weird guy ever.

And…

DOUG BURGHUM: Has nuclear missiles in his state.

Quick poll:

Harris and company haven’t really rung the weirdo bell much, since she’s been busy counting the quarter of a billion dollars she raised in 48 hours. There’s only one way to describe that haul:

Weird.

The Vice President should pick Gov. Walz. Why?

Because Fritz Mondale. Not weird in any manner whatsoever. Anti-weird. My favorite Fritz Mondale story:

One of his advisers said maybe he should kick-up his fashion look a little bit as he explored running for president in 1976. You know, maybe get a different haircut, Senator Mondale.

Mondale replied: “People in Minnesota like shitty haircuts.”

True story.

But now that I think about it, Minnesota is a little weird.

But not as weird as Wisconsin.