This election year, things just seem to keep getting ‘worser’!

BY LOUIE OVERSTREET

I have been engaged in politics since serving as a “block captain” in Carl Stokes’ successful campaign to become mayor of Cleveland in 1967.

I believe in a two or more party system — and for a half-dozen years or so, I was a registered Republican while living in Alaska. I switched back to being a Democrat when the silent majority took over the Republican Party, and became far too mean-spirited and bigoted for me.

However, 2016 is the worst year I can remember in my half-century of involvement in politics.

I can remember the Democrats handing the election to Republicans back in August 1968, when the Chicago Seven and a host of other assorted protesters were able to goad Mayor Daley into dispatching his police force to beat the crap out of the marchers in front of the Hilton Hotel.

In 1988, the Republicans, at the urging of Lee Atwater, decided to play the race card big time — by successfully making a noun into a verb. Back then, the Republicans were pitching being tough on crime as a campaign issue. Well, a brother who had committed murder, Willie Horton, was out on a weekend pass and committed a couple of serious felonies. The program was one supported by Michael Dukakis, the Democratic nominee for President. The Republicans started running advertisements featuring the most sinister photo of Willie Horton they could find. Thus, from that day on, when Republicans play the race card, it’s called “Willie Hortoning” a candidate.

Back in 1968, the Democrats shot themselves in the foot, in 1988; the Republicans did the shooting,

In 2016, the Republicans seem to be killing themselves. I mean, what’s up with making references to the size of your opponent’s private parts or publishing photos of how ugly your opponent’s wife happens to be?

Watching these clowns perform, one could wrongly conclude that we have solved the problems relating to the economy, terrorism, use of deadly force, education, and affordable health care.

I know Shakespeare said “All the world’s a stage.” He could have never imagined these Republican clowns would turn the stage into a three-ring circus.