Here come the candidates - and the statistics

We seem to be bombarded with statistics lately. From the newspapers, to the television, to the radio, it’s all about numbers. I suppose in a political year, this is quite natural - useless, but still natural. Some of the statistics may be surprising, though.

For instance, the experts tell us that during a presidential election year, the number of sales of television sets rises dramatically. 

Not because viewers don’t have a television, but because most people have taken either an axe or machete to their current set by now.

After listening to the most annoying political commentators 24/7, discussing such formidable topics as the number of bathroom breaks a candidate takes and what that means to the conservative vote, the liberal vote, the NRA vote and the Citizens Against Anything Wet vote, the average viewer’s mind will snap, not to mention his or her eyeballs will glaze over permanently until they are so dazed they will have to be fed by nuns for months. Unfortunately, their only option is to turn to taking apart any inanimate object.

The commentators mostly are like those annoying classmates in high school who used to sit in the front row so the teacher could readily see their hands raised, but in the cafeteria the only people who would sit with them were the cafeteria workers. They were always handing in their homework early, and not a hair was out of place for an eight o’clock class. Totally un-American.

They simply were irritating and quite naturally adored and held up as role models by parents. We’d much rather hang around with someone like Vito, who used to climb to the top of the stairwell and drop a phone book on someone’s head below. The guy was a riot. OK, currently he is doing five to 10, but I really don’t think a collection of saws kept in his apartment had anything to do with his sense of humor.

So we don’t mind the candidates so much or what they have to say, if they can get a word in, period. It’s the 60 or so experts provoked to shaking their fingers at each other, like an angry husband who just discovered his wife’s Visa bill. Outrageous!

OK know-it-all, you might be tempted to counter. You try sitting around the table talking about minutiae about as exciting as reading the label on a jar of mayonnaise.

Actually I would be the worst commentator. I tend to nod off when I hear statistics. Especially if those numbers involve the words add, subtract and divide. But I do have some expertise in interviewing.

For instance, I would delve into their deepest, darkest soul asking such important Barbara Walters questions as, “If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?” I have the ability to get right to the heart of the matter. Well, yeah, unless it involves the words add, subtract and of course divide.

You don’t have to sit around and watch political shows, you say. Just change the channel. Seriously? Have you seen what is being shown on television during the summer? Apparently, the broadcast geniuses think we would rather sit outside on mosquito- and fly-infested porches watching crickets date each other until the wee hours of the morning rather than watch a regular television series.

Statistics tell us that the highest-rated shows during the summer season are reruns of “Leave It To Beaver” in English and Spanish. Any television show involving someone who is too fat, too thin, too small, too tall or has too much hair comes in second.

Well, the mother of all statistics is coming, two presidential conventions. Get your pencil and paper out now. And so it goes.