“You need to focus on the important issues!” Bob Bonehead yelled at me the other day. “You get caught up in wrong-headed thinking too often. I saw you looking at candidate websites trying to read position papers. What are you going to learn from that?”

Bob was trying to re-educate me to help me become a better voter. As one of the few awake through my civics classes in high school (I admit to being that guy who actually participated without urging/pleading by the teacher), I had always thought it important to know how a candidate stood on economic and public health and safety issues. Bob, he was going to open my eyes.

“Does your candidate wear a flag pin on his lapel?” Bob asked me. I hadn’t noticed. "You haven’t noticed whether your candidate disses America?” he cried incredulously. Doesn’t purchasing a flag pin help the economy of China more, since the pins were made there? “See? More of your wrong-headed thinking, son. Get your mind straight. The man is Commie.”

“Your boy had a $500 dollar haircut, I read.” The point? “Real Americans don’t get expensive haircuts.” The guy’s a millionaire. Isn’t he free to spend what he wants on an haircut? “There you go again. No real American spends that kinda dough on a haircut. Me, I never would.” I pointed out Bob not only no longer required much in the way of haircuts but never spent more than $5 bucks on a six pack of beer either. “Son, you don’t need to be extravagant. There are things to spend money on, like good ammo.”

“Your boy has a preacher that taught him to be un-American. People do what their preacher tells him, so look at what their preacher says for a clue to the kinda guy he is.” Really, Bob? I know your pastor happens to be an Evangelical. He took up the Rick Warren school of preaching about stewardship of the environment and preventing global warming recently.

“That boy is my next project. More wrong-headed thinking. He needs to stick to the important issues.” Bob shook his head dejectedly, took the camo hat off, wiped his forehead and took a hit of his cheap lite beer.