From the Slope of Hope: About a week ago, tens of millions of thick printed election information guides were mailed to every household in California, including mine. I have no idea what it costs the state to create this thing, but I suspect something approaching a hundred million dollars. The purpose of these things is, ostensibly, for people to carefully study the propositions on the June ballot as well as the candidates for the various government posts (Federal Senator, California Governor, Treasurer, and so forth).

California is a famously progressive state, but thumbing through this book, I am always struck by some of the - - shall we say - - more fringe candidate that somehow have made their way into this publicly-funded publication. Here are a few...........

We begin with Jerry Laws, whose entire platform and campaign for the Senate can be expressed in merely a single word:

John Crew, however, is at least a little more verbose. I daresay the single issue he's focused on won't win him many votes in the Golden State.

Oh, speaking of children - - they ones that make it past any abortions - - here's what Chris Carlson has to say. Apparently his campaign manager is Dr. Seuss.

I've taken the liberty of highlighting the next one, since it's so wordy. Don Grundmann - - whose photo suggests he just witnessed the "reveal" scene in The Crying Game - - apparently isn't a big fan of transgenders. I daresay he doesn't bother to tell people his preferred pronouns when introduced.

A broader worldview is held by Doug Pierce (whose hair was fashioned in the style of David Lynch about the time Blue Velvet was released). Mr. Pierce loves everybody!

As enjoyable as the crazy hair picture is, not all candidates bother to provide a head shot. Lee Olson didn't bother, but he did take the trouble to share his slogans, instead of some boring mission statement. They have the catchy cadence and memorable phrasing of something out of North Korea.

Whereas John Parker is more to the point. He wants capitalism to end. "Kill Whitey" didn't make it past the editors, I guess.

Then there's THIS piece of work.........

I confess I had no idea what #cesp5 was supposed to mean, so I checked it out. Apparently it stands for Community Empowered Safety Plan #5 (perhaps the prior four didn't make it, in the spirit of Plan 9 From Outer Space). As Mr. Liu describes it, "I am the Worldʼs Smartest Leader. As we speak, CESP5, a game that enables ordinary people to be prosperous in the lands of capitalism, is spreading like wildfire across the world." Considering that the only links I found to CESP5 were from Peter Liu himself, I'm not so sure about the "wildfire" thing.

Far more verbose than a hashtag is this one which is well worth a read.......

So I see he's jumped on board the blockchain bandwagon. But let me get this straight - - if he serves as Senator, his function will be to simply execute whatever vote the majority provides to him? That makes him just kind of a highly-priced automaton, right? I think this entire premise is e-Idiotic.

Listen, screw all these guys. I've already found the man who gets my vote:

But, sadly, in spite of all these spirited attempts, we all know who is going to return to the Senate for her 97th consecutive term from California...........