Maybe it’s the somewhat stilted phrasing, but I’m having trouble with figuring out where Parker & Hart are going with this one.
“How soon” refers to what? Is this a rant about young people being too stupid to run for office? Have we had a plague of youthful officeholders screwing up that I’ve somehow missed? Or is this dialogue just evidence of early-onset dementia among the cartoonist community?
I’m aware of the risk of public ridicule I run in bothering to read meaning into the works of Johnny Hart. I’ll take my chances of winding up in the Pit.
Hart’s notoriously conservative – this might be a covert jab at Barack Obama. I suppose whether Obama’s youth is his biggest problem is debatable.
More to the point, don’t Articles 1 and 2 of the Constitution already set a limit of “how soon” (what minimum age) people can run for office? I know they do for the Presidency, Senate, and House.
That would make this joke/jab about 218 years late.
It’s also possible it’s meant to be a jab at Obama. He’s quite young, and a common criticism made of him is that he’s still a freshman senator and is theoretically too inexperienced, which is another possible interpretation I can tease out of that first panel. The second panel makes absolutely no sense to me at all, though.
Indeed. I though that the kingdom of Id was an absolute monarchy, so there would be no elective positions there. So why is the king worrying about the issue?
The King is saying that we need to limit the length of time before an election that people can declare their candidacy–he thinks that people are announcing that they’re running when the election is too far off in the distant future.
The Wizard says, in agreement, that candidates need to be able to make an intelligent decision about their campaign. He thinks that candidates’ announcing themselves so early in the race means that they are not making intelligent decisions.
The King humourously renterprets that that to mean that people who run for office should have the general ability to make an intelligent decision, implying humorously that most people who run for office in our society do NOT have that ability.
And after seeing BayleDomon’s post, I think that “how soon” might refer to how early in the individual’s political career, rather than how early before an election.
You guys are reading too much into this. The first panel just sets up the second panel – he’s not taking a shot at anybody.
The King is saying that people should have to meet a minimum age before being allowed to run for election. The wizard tries to say is that once they’re old enough to make an intelligent decision, they should be allowed to run, but what he actually says is “They should have to be able to make an intelligent decision”. The King turns this around and says “That’s another problem” – meaning that people should also have the ability to make intelligent decisions before running for office, independent of the age limit(the implication being that politicians of any age are incapable of making intelligent decisions, and that’s a different problem that needs to be dealt with).
Of course, this explanation has choked out what little humour there was in the comic.
My take:
The [del]Fink[/del] King is saying there should be a limit as to how soon before an election a candidate should be allowed to announce their candidacy. (Something I sympathize with, but would never fly legally.)
The Wizard is saying that the people need to be able to make an intelligent decision regarding the candidates. This could have been made clearer with a leading “But”.
Finally, the King is saying that none of the current primary candidates are intelligent.
There was potential there, but it could have been handled better. Believe it or not, you whippersnappers, Johnny Hart used to be funny.
You are all wrong. The message is a code meant only for the initiated. The King of Id is actually the King in Yellow, the last scion of the dynasty from Carcosa. Soon the Yellow Sign will be sent out, and the unbelievers will be thrown into the cloudy depths of the lake of Hali! Join us now if you wish to save yourself.
I think rms996 is on the right track. The issue of candidates announcing early and primaries being held earlier has been in the news lately. A swipe at Obama would have had the word ‘clean’ in it somewhere.
He is concerned about the eight critical Oklahoma electoral votes in the next election, and wants to limit how Sooner State (or Soon) candidates can run for office. And then in the next panel casts aspersions on their intelligence.
I never cease to be amazed by his endless anti-Okie “humor”.
This is an abortion of a cartoon, a half-developed idea that went nowhere. And as a matter of conscience, I believe such abortions should be banned, even if the life of the cartoonist is at stake.
