Tracy Flick in Lenexa

This past 4th of July, I attended the annual Lenexa 4th of July parade. My, what sites I saw! I showed up bright and early in Old Town Lenexa. Unfortunately, the politicians were at the front of the parade in their shiny new cars, and they led the parade by riding through the streets of the parade route like Roman Emperors in their chariots. One by one, the brain-dead politicians passed me, waving from their special interest automative perches:

• State Representative Stephanie Sharp (R-KS), a brain-dead representative from the 17th district located in Lenexa. Her large army of volunteers were handing out candy to the little kids on the parade route in a vain attempt to buy the loyalty of any of Sharp's parent constituents who just happened to be in the crowd. Stephanie was elected to the legislature in 2002 at the young age of 27. She is a go-getter who is an expert at looking good in the press photos and issuing brain-dead press releases. Unfortunately, she won re-election in 2004 and will be with us for a long time. Her beauty will fade over time, but the fact that she is brain-dead will not.
  
• State Representative David Huff (R-KS), my state representative and an old fart who does nothing of value in the legislature besides passing what he calls "small bills" into law (like addressing the pressing issues of the day, such as regulating the use of laser pointers in movie theaters). Huff is a retired executive from the Colgate-Palmolive Company. If you look at his photo, you can see a faint resemblance to either Santa Claus or Wilford Brimley. I don't really know what he did at Colgate, but he probably made a lot of money making soap and going to conference calls and playing golf with his clients. Huff didn't see me because he was sitting in the back of a giant Lincoln Town Car with tinted windows. Giant "Huff" placards were all over the Town Car. The windows were up, so I couldn't tell if Huff was in there or not. Although I did see a faint resemblance of a do-nothing politician sitting on top a pile of special interest money, so perhaps he was in there after all.
  
• Johnson County Sheriff Frank Denning (R-KS), our "law and order" sheriff who keeps us Johnson Countians safe from violent criminals, high school graduation parties run amok, and the ever-present threat of al-Qaeda terrorists. Sheriff Denning didn't look very nice as he drove his convertible Mustang through the parade route with his dumpy, frumpy wife sitting by his side. They both looked foul and they scowled a lot, like they both needed immediate enemas to clear out their systems. They didn't wave, and I kind of wondered how he got elected as sheriff in the first place. Then I started thinking "In 2005, why do we even elect sheriffs anymore? This isn't the Wild West of Dodge City. Can't we just hire a sheriff instead of having them run for office?". But then if they weren't elected, we would never see the sheriff show up at community parades. They might be off catching criminals and deterring crime, which is what they are paid to do (what a novel thought).
  

Finally, the politician's parade concluded with Mayor Mike Boehm, first elected as Lenexa Mayor in January of 2003 and re-elected to a full four-year term in April of 2003. When he isn't busy being Mayor of Lenexa, Mike spends the rest of the work week as a Vice-President at Commerce Bank. Of course, I don't know what the title of "Vice-President" really means if someone works at a bank because let's face it, everyone who works at a bank is called "Vice-President" (other than the tellers, and they do all of the work). The problem with Mike was that he was riding in a convertible Toyota Solara. I did a double-take. Surely, an American politician from a major automobile-production town like Kansas City (and its suburbs) wouldn't be callous enough or politically tone-deaf enough to be riding through a 4th of July parade in a foreign-made car. But, alas, Mike was riding through the parade route in an imported Japanese car.

Several thoughts raced through my mind as I saw Boehm in the Toyota. In the movie "Election", the character Tracy Flick represents the typical ambitious, public-relations-focused candidate that litter the American political scene. During her election campaign to become Student Government President of Carver High School, Tracy baked 480 individualized cupcakes and gave them to the students on election day. Mike Boehm is Lenexa's Tracy Flick. He looks good, he has the perfect overpaid pud job at Commerce Bank, and he has a nice pud position as Mayor of Lenexa. But he has the leadership foresight and political acumen of a wet blanket. He doesn't give us Lenexans cupcakes, however, and I hold this against him. If you are going to be a Tracy Flick cupcake politician, you might as well hand out the cupcakes.

Kansas City is a major auto production hub. We have a Ford production facility and a General Motors production facility. Over the past 30 years, Ford and GM have been losing market share to the Japanese and Korean automakers. Today, the Big 3 domestic producers (Ford, GM, and Chrysler) are barely clinging to a majority share of the U.S. auto market. And the effects on the U.S. economy have been catastrophic: the U.S. trade deficit explodes year after year; U.S. autoworkers losing their well-paying jobs (which has a tremendous ripple effect throughout the U.S. economy); and the de-industrialization of the Unted States.

As I saw Mike Boehm pass me in his Toyota, all I could think of was "What a fink. What a traitor. What a loser." Doesn't he have any loyalty to the autoworkers who make their livings in the Kansas City auto plants? Well, he probably doesn't come from a union household so he doesn't "get it" on this issue. He probably doesn't understand that each year as we shovel hundreds of billions of trade-deficit-ridden dollars to Japan for their automobiles that we are just driving the U.S. closer to the cliff of economic bankruptcy and national oblivion. But what does Mike Boehm care? He has his cushy job in his cushy bank and sits on the cushy City Council of Lenexa. He could give a rat's ass about the plight of the U.S. economy or of local area automakers. I was so filled with rage that I yelled out at Mayor Boehm as he stood there in front of me waving in his Toyota Solar (at the top of my lungs): "Why don't you drive an American car?". The crowd of fellow Lenexans around me exploded in spontaneous applause when I uttered those words, and Mike Boehm did a serious double-take at the insolence of this catball from the constituent peanut gallery. Everyone around me starting cat-calling Mayor Boehm with epithets like "that is a great idea, why aren't you driving an American car?" and the like. I could tell that Boehm was embarassed, and yet to be truthful I could care less about him.


Of course, when we elect Tracy Flick-like politicians, this is what we can expect at the 4th of July parades when all of the politicians come see the hoi polloi and try to show how much they truly care about their constituents. In Lenexa, I will continue to monitor the self-serving political advancement of our own Tracy Flicks: the economically traitorous Mike Boehm, the brain-dead and vapid Stephanie Sharp, and the retired old fart David Huff. Who knows, if I wait long enough, maybe they will give me a cupcake!