Let’s transform fear campaign into laughter

I‘m too freaked out to watch television this weekend. Wolves have started showing up in my nightmares.

Have you seen Bush’s latest ad? The forest darkens, a muzzle flashes and a woman’s voice with an inexplicably British accent warns of liberals like John Kerry. She concludes, “And weakness attracts those who are waiting to do America harm.”

Then the wolves circle.

Iiiiiieeee!

I’m terrified, not so much by the wolves, but by the realization that our commander-in-chief relishes striking fear right into the hearts of the American people. If it’s terror we’re fighting, Bush is aiding the enemy.

This campaign season, it doesn’t matter that Saddam’s in prison and Osama’s locked up in a cave. American politicians have taken over where the terrorists left off. They’ve frightened us right under the covers.

Political analyst Stuart Rothenburg summed it up for the Dallas Morning News last week: “They are certainly trying to demonize the other guy and scare the heck out of the voters in a variety of ways,” he said.

The wolves are at the door. There’s only one thing to be done. Today’s Halloween. It’s the day, as children’s author Maurice Sendak might say, to invite our fears to come out and play. It’s the day to throw open the nightmare closet where the wild things are and declare, “Let the wild rumpus begin.”

Today’s the day to laugh in the face of fear.

Consider the U.S. Senate race in Washington. We’ve got two of the most mild-mannered, innocuous candidates in political history endorsing attack ads and frightening the bejesus out of the electorate.

George Nethercutt, that affable fellow from Spokane’s South Hill, claims Patty Murray’s practically an Osama bin Laden groupie.

As for the demure Murray, she first ran for the Senate in 1992 as “a mom in tennis shoes.” Yet her ads aimed at Seattle voters sound dire as a level-three sex offender warning. They point out that Nethercutt has moved into the neighborhood. And only with the darkest of motives.

All of this would be frightening, if it weren’t so silly.

Murray still brings to the Senate her conscientious school-teacher demeanor. And Nethercutt, whose Spokane friends remember him with fondness, no doubt makes his mom proud by writing more courteous thank-you notes than she’d ever dreamed possible.

Negative ads from this pair of softies just don’t ring true.

As for the presidential race, Bush and Kerry have been trading attacks in an increasingly vicious dogfight of barred teeth and whirling saliva.

To my eye, Bush and Dick Cheney menace most convincingly. Both tap into a simmering keg of rage that lies just beneath the surface. Their anger doesn’t make me feel safer, nor my world more secure.

But Kerry’s gamely been doing his best to attack back, and Edwards races along behind, yipping and snarling as well as a puppy dog politician can.

Today, on Allhallow’s Eve, let’s just say, “Enough.” Enough of the political skeletons and ghouls, enough of the ramming of stakes through the other’s guy’s heart, enough of the visions of evil-doers and green-faced opponents and things that go bump in the night.

Today’s the day to transform the campaign into laughter.

It’s a fine day for picking up a Dick Cheney mask at the Display House, or popping into Boo Radley’s for a set of George Bush paper dolls. I haunt that place regularly, full as it is of the sort of hip tackiness designed to shock a midlife mom like me. I go to be assaulted and to remember how to laugh.

It’s a day for pulling down the pants on the political clowns that surround us and for chortling out loud at their polka-dotted boxer shorts.

To get in the mood, check out the humor of our political court jesters. Visit David Letterman’s Late Show Web site for the latest Top Ten List, download videos from Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show,” or troll www.theonion.com for a spoof of the headlines in America’s daily newspapers: “Cheney Vows to Attack U.S. If Kerry Elected” and “Kerry’s Face Droops With Joy Over Latest Polls.”

That may not solve all of our fears, but it’s a start.

One more anxiety bumping around in that closet of yours? Facing All Saint’s Day with just a touch of homophobia, perhaps? I have yet another Halloween recommendation for you.

Google “candidates in drag” for doctored photos of Bush, Cheney, Kerry and Edwards.

Here’s what’ll really send you shrieking into the night. Of the four, there’s only one drag queen that actually looks like a woman.

And she’s Dick Cheney.