The Cambridge Geek

Rich Hall's US Election Breakdown - Midterms 2018

These have been running for a while now, with an episode popping up as needed by the USA's political landscape. The most recent was "a year of Trump" which I only partly enjoyed. That's mostly due to the fact that Donald Trump is such an idiot that he's honestly difficult to mock in a creative way. We're so burned out on the stupidity of his natural state that satire just feels like a documentary.

For a similar problem, see Brexit.

Luckily however, this special is about the "mid-terms" and even though their president did his best to make it about himself, there are enough other people involved that there's other sources of comedy. One rich seam that had been plumbed multiple times, and so wasn't really available for this is Paul Gosar, a Republican who received an "attack ad" from 2/3rds of his siblings. He still won, by the way, with a very comfortable margin. Republicans. Who can figure 'em?

But he does nicely indicate the wider possibilities for mockery here, with candidates from all over the states being responsible for some silliness. There's Dennis Hof, who won an election despite being a dead brothel owner.

And there's Brian Kemp, with the redneckiest advert out there. Seriously, go watch it.

Once again it's part Hall stand-up, part fake interview, with Nick Doody co-hosting. The interviews are the usual pleasing daftness, with a fact-checker (not an easy job nowadays), who has the best insult I've heard all year. And it has an excellent running joke about investing in the sea, delivered in the form of fake adverts. There's also a bit about Stan Lee that I wasn't expecting, which included an impressively accurate version of his laugh (that's Lewis MacLeod for you, who also does his Trump). Made me sad again.

I have to say, this is doing something quite interesting, providing a bit more information on some news stories that didn't quite get fully exposed over here. I hadn't heard anything about the Acosta follow-up after the initial removal of his press pass, and the fact that it's prompted the White House to come up with new rules for questions. I'm always impressed when comedy gives me more news.

A lovely little one off, which I can heartily recommend to anyone who has the slightest interest in American politics.

Score:
Score 5

Tagged: Radio Comedy Cast Informative News/Political