Blake's Think Tank

Information is passing through the Arkansas blogopshere that David Meeks of Conway, a Republican, intends to challenge Congressman Vic Snyder, a Democrat, in 2010. According to the bio on his Web site, Mr. Meeks served in the U.S. Army from 1990 – 1995 and has worked for an unnamed charter school and an unnamed health insurance company. No word on what he’s up to now.

Arkansas has long needed a political candidate who wears theme ties and uses exclamation points, and now it has one. Jason Tolbert will be thrilled.

Since you asked, The Think Tank hates theme ties because Think Tank Mom used to dress me in them when I was kid. After enough beatdowns by the ruffians at church I announced that I was no longer wearing theme ties (or anything that had my name on it). I was eleven. I had rights. And I’ve stuck to it.

Naturally, The Think Tank spent some time staring at the tie Mr. Meeks chose for his Web site photograph. I guess the imagery of American flag and the Liberty Bell is supposed to invoke his overwhelming love of country. Great place to start, especially against Mr. Snyder, who served in Vietnam while in the Marine Corps and participated in several military-based medical missions while active in his medical practice. Personally, I would have chosen this tie to show support for Arkansas’s wildlife. Go ahead and wrap up that active Central Arkansas sportsmen vote.

And while the tie was distracting, The Think Tank’s attention quickly turned to Mr. Meeks’ use of the exclamation point in the copy on his homepage. Background: The Think Tank hates the exclamation point. And when I write hate I mean real hate, Michael Bay hate. It’s a useless punctuation mark that, ironically, is overused. Let’s be real honest: it never makes anything that you write more exciting. And it’s a fraud. The mark’s intent to is deceive you, the reader, into believing that sentence you just read was exciting, when, more often than not, what you just read was plain terrible.

Take, for example, what Mr. Meeks wrote on the homepage of his Web site,

Welcome! I want to say Thank You for taking the time to visit my website! On this website you will be able to find out who I am, what I believe, and how to get involved in the campaign!

I believe with your support we can win, and send a strong message to Washington that principles and values matter!

Count ‘em baby, that’s four exclamation points. He’s raining exclamation points like Larry Bird in the ‘84 NBA Finals. Of course, not one of the sentences was the least bit exciting or worthy of special attention by the reader. “Welcome!” Really? What’s this guy jockeying for, a job at an amusement park? Nope. Political office. Which begs the question of why he didn’t choose “They’ll never take our freedom!” as his opening line? See “Braveheart,” dir. M. Gibson. 1995.

Between this and Curtis Coleman’s blogging I’m not sure Arkansas voters will be able to handle it.