A caller in the employ of one of the major political parties reminded me that this is an election year.

Oh, really? Who would have guessed?

I spend a lot of time living under a rock, but I do know that there is an election this year. I’ve seen that this year’s crop of campaign signs has germinated. It looks like it will be record harvest this year. Traditionally, the sign harvest is in November. The November election is much closer than it appears in the rearview mirror.

When someone throws his or her hat into the ring here in the North Country, it has earlaps on it.

We get the blahs when the politicians get the blah-blah-blahs. The campaign lasts longer than the term of office.

Politicians are big believers in the Rule of PUNG. PUNG stands for probably, usually, normally and generally. Probably, usually, normally and generally, politicians make a lot of promises. They’re not unlike the promises I made as a boy when I was in hot water. I promised to be good and to do what I was told. I forgot about those promises the minute I got out of the hot water.

Being a politician is like playing golf. You are trapped in one bad lie after another. The greatest talent of a successful politician is a lie ability.

Shirley MacLaine, who knows stuff because she has lived many previous lives, said, “It’s useless to hold a person to anything he says while he’s in love, drunk or running for office.”

Politicians make so many election promises that it is impossible for them to remember them all, let alone keep them.

“Whatever my opponent promises, I’ll promise more.”

What we need are politicians who will say, “I promise not to make any promises.”

How about a constitutional amendment that declares anything said in a campaign commercial to be under oath?

Does anyone other than the people running for office, the people conducting the polls and the TV news channels really care what a poll shows? We need to stop poll reporting to the public. It serves no purpose to the voter. Although you can take a nation’s pulse by use of polls, you can’t be sure that the nation hasn’t just run up a flight of stairs.

It seems as if we hold elections just to show which poll was correct.

My neighbor Crandall stopped by.

“Are you getting enough political campaign rhetoric from those striving to attain national offices?” I asked.

“I enjoy drawing moustaches and dark glasses on the political posters. The system works. Politicians are like polkas. They have different names, but they all sound alike,” said Crandall. “I’m not really for anyone. I’m just against a lot.”

“So who are you going to vote for?” I queried.

“My normal method of voting is to decide who I want to vote against. But this year, I don’t dislike any of the candidates enough to vote against any of them,” said my neighbor.

“I suppose you’ll fall back on the tried and true ‘Eeny, meeny, miney, moe,’” I said.

“No, I have a plan,” said Crandall. “It’s a foolproof method for making my ballot decisions.”

“So you’re going to split your votes—part heads and part tails?” I inquired.

“No, it’s much more scientific than even that,” said my neighbor.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Each time someone calls me with one of those recorded messages asking me to vote for a particular candidate, I give that candidate a demerit. Each time I hear an attack ad saying something bad about an opponent, I give the candidate endorsed by the commercial a demerit. I don’t like all that negative campaigning stuff. ‘Vote for me, because the other guy is a bigger jerk than I am’ is as negative as I like to hear. I will vote for whoever has the least demerits. It’s voting for the lesser of two evils.”

The campaigns are not all the fault of those running for office. We share the blame. We always need a lot more of what we don’t want to pay for.

Maybe what we need is a good deal less of what we already have.

Bill Vaughn wrote, “America is a land where a citizen will cross the ocean to fight for democracy — and won’t cross the street to vote in a national election.”

Make sure you vote. People who vote have an unfair influence over the government.

So vote this year. Then go home and get some rest.

You’re going to need it.

If your candidate doesn’t win, vote a little harder the next time.

Hartland resident Al Batt’s columns appear every Wednesday and Sunday.