2004-02-19 - 11:06 p.m.

See? I told you Clark would fold like a Chinese laundry girl.

Seeing as how President's Day has whipped by with all the requisite pomp and circumstance -- carpets available at a patriotic discount, 2 for 1 baked potatoes at Shoney's to celebrate our forefather's gifts to this great nation, lots of talking Mt. Rushmore heads and singing dollar bills on television -- I feel that it is my obligation, as someone who is so devastatingly intelligent that highly advanced beings come from parsecs away merely to lose to me at Scrabble, to tell you about the political scene of which you are all so painfully, painfully unaware.

Yes, you. Don't raise your eyebrow at me. I can see you there, clucking your tongue and stroking your beard (or, in some cases, imaginary beard), and chuckling as you arrive at the conclusion that I must be talking about everyone EXCEPT you when I say "you", because after all YOU know that John Kerry's middle name is "Forbes", that Wesley Clark is a three-star general and that John Edwards is a homicidal circus clown.

HA! You fool! Wesley Clark is a FOUR-star general!

Okay, let's start with the basics:

That's what we're looking at here, kids. Electors of various States are being selected in a manner as the Legislatures thereof have directed. And a whole monkey house full of jackasses (that's a mixed metaphor ... although the voting process is something like getting mulekicked in groin and having dung flung in your eyes) is riding the rails, trying to gather enough water and split enough infinitives to convince the American people that a psychotic, slope-browed, power-drunk, cocaine-riddled chimp should perhaps not be handed the reins over the most dominant global power history has ever known for another four years.

Obviously, they're going to fail.

Not that I lack faith in the American herd. They're a fine, upstanding, well-fed, beef-loving, buzzed, heavily armed, chemically-dependent, hippity-hopping, Flintstones-enjoying group of people. But their track record in bringing down totalitarian thrones is not a great one. I mean, jeez, look at how many times they elected a Roosevelt.

Nonetheless, the time has come once again for this farce to be enacted. And, o children, what a cast of players we have assembled for your amusements this time around. Prophets. Madmen. Witch queens and warrior gods. Gentle rustics, flaming blackamoors, dancing gnomes. A whole host of oddities and sports, the Greatest Show on Earth here for your amusement.

Now, sadly, many of the clowns and jugglers have already stepped off the sawdust this far into the show. But nonetheless, you should be made familiar with their names, as you will certainly, one way or another, be hearing them again. So, presented for your consideration, allow me to ... uh ... present:

Carol Moseley Braun: Ms. Braun was a former senator from Illinois who is currently our esteemed ambassador to New Zealand. She was notable especially for her support of education and her condemnation of South Carolina's display of the Confederate flag on the state capitol. Moseley Braun ran with the simple intent of "taking the 'Men Only' sign off the White House". Her platform was built primarily on opposition to the war (that's the war in Iraq, not the war on terrorism, drugs, or the inscrutable Asians) and a devotion to a new internationalism, as well as an intense focus on civil liberties as specified in the Constitution. Perhaps second only to Mr. Kucinich, she was vociferous in her distaste for the USA PATRIOT Act. Her campaign lost momentum very early on, but she did set the record as the most successful female candidate in history, appearing on the primary ballot in 20 states. She will remain a powerful force as a voice for minorities (along with Al Sharpton) and women at the DNC.

As a quick aside, "DNC" stands for Democratic National Convention, and is the Emerald City at the end of this saffron-paved road winding from primary to primary. No matter how poorly a candidate does, no matter how much spittle they may spray hog slaughterers in Iowa and pipefitters in New Hampshire with, no matter how many senior citizens they trample in their frantic rush to shake hands and kiss babies ... if they can accrue even ONE measly vote in the primary, that's pure GOLD. Gold that can be used to buy favors from whatever poor soul is lagging a few votes behind the frontrunner. "You guarantee that you'll put my buddy Joe Red Cloud in as Secretary of Labor, I'll see to it that Jerry Lunchpail and his family swing your way in Wisconsin." So it's always surprising to see a strong candidate bow out early ... and there's always a dark reason for it if they drop entirely out of sight. Which is why, as I said, you'll be seeing all these people for a while. For more information on how the favor system functions, read Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72. Now.
I'll wait.

... okay, that's long enough. Now to introduce one of my sentimental favorites.

Dennis John Kucinich: Mr. Kucinich has been active in Ohio politics since 1969, working his way up from councilman in Cleveland to Congressman. He has been active as a vitriolic and shrill progressive, favoring municipal ownership of facilities and economic policies that are so far to the left as to cross the hazy border towards socialism. His platform is ... manifold, wide-ranging, and a little unnerving. He wanted to set up universal public health care, pull out of NAFTA and sever ties with the WTO, create thousands of jobs, apologize profusely to the rest of the world for Bush's cowboy tactics, and set up a Department of Peace. No, really. A Department of Peace where the much more ominous Office of Homeland Security now sits. He demands a real war on poverty, support for local trade organizations (the AFL-CIO loves Kucinich), and an end to American involvement with the International Monetary Fund. He has displayed a little bit of flippery, switching from voting against RU-486 and partial birth abortions to an ardent pro-choice plank. He was also one of the 31 Democrats who broke ranks in Congress to vote for unlimited impeachment hearings against President Clinton, after previously comparing Starr's investigation to Alice in Wonderland. His biggest faults, aside from being a leftist radical, are his occasional bouts of shrieking alternating with a taste for cosmic wonder. "The energy of the stars becomes us. We become the energy of the stars. Stardust and spirit unite amd we begin: One with the universe. Whole and holy," as he remarked to the Praxis Peace Institute in 2002. Kucinich hasn't had much of a chance, bastard child of Eugene V. Debs and Timothy Leary that he is, but he has certainly captured the imagination of those earnest Americans who are tired of the old-guard, power-hungry, materialistic, sane politicians.

Ahh, Denny. You've got to love a man who hasn't let reality weigh him down in his quest for justice, equality, and city-owned power plants. I respect him almost as much as I laugh at him.

And, continuing our parade of candidates that have less of a chance than the late Strom Thurmond, allow me to present:

The Reverend Alfred Charles Sharpton, Jr.: The Reverend has been an ordained minister since the age of nine, and aside from his rambunctious political diatribes he has earned renown as the head of the National Youth Organization and an administrator for boxing promoter Don King. Sharpton has been a force in Congress through the offices of Illinois Democrat Jesse Jackson Jr., proposing Constitutional amendments to guarantee a federally-controlled education with absolutely equal opportunities for all students, regardless of race, creed, and all that jazz ... and he's gone stumping for standardized voting procedures for every state. He also wants to get the District of Columbia made into a state, which would be a boon to the Democratic Senate. Sharpton's manic focus on equality defines his candidacy. He wishes to renounce America's role as RoboCop for the World, set Bush's "tax shift" to rights, and lend America's resources to the poor in both the Third World and our own inner cities. Noble aims, and Sharpton is an eloquent and gifted speaker, but one who has been castigated so often by the editorial press that he has been effectively defanged. He has also been -- rightly -- accused of gloryhounding, and lost a bizarre defamation suit after accusing New York state prosecutor Stephen Pagones of kidnapping and raping a fifteen-year old girl named Tawana Brawley. A broad target for moderate African-American Republicans, public intellectuals, and the hard right alike, Sharpton is making the most of this rare opportunity and hanging on to every vote he can accrue in a death grip.

And what opportunity is this? Simple enough, my children. The Bush administration, for a few brief months, enjoyed the purest adulation experienced by anyone outside the Vatican and Graceland from all America and indeed, all the world.

Then they decided to drop millions of tons of explosives on two of the poorest nations in the world. Despite the rather frank preference of the United Nations that we not murder tens of thousands of civilians to avenge the murder of thousands of civilians. And, of course, despite the largest concerted global protest in human history. And BushCo. followed up that sterling performance by admitting to lying, incompentence, and skullduggery in the pursuit of this outlaw war, and for an encore lost millions of American jobs and demolished civil liberties and ratted out one of his own intelligence agents for petty revenge and had lower ratings for his State of the Union address than those enjoyed by that night's rerun of Who's the Boss?.

So now is that most singular of opportunities, a chance for the Democratic party to overcome the Clinton cult of personality that has beleaguered their public image since 1996 and finally topple the reeling elephantine boy-king. A time when it would take an utter miracle for the party of FDR and JFK and LBJ to fail.

And if you know the Democrats, you know that taking long odds on that miracle is eeeeeeasy money.

And, speaking of easy money and utter failures, let's talk about our candidate from Florida.

Daniel Robert "Bob" Graham: Ah, Bob. He's followed essentially the same path as Dennis Kucinich, except in Florida, which means he's fifteen times as corrupt, thirty times as canny, forty-five times as wealthy, and has eaten way more gator than Denny. From state representative to state senator to governor to Senator, Mr. Graham has done it all with the weirdness and aplomb we've come to expect from our Floridian politicos. A man of paradoxes, he has called Bush an impeachable liar, led the investigation into intelligence failures before 9/11, and headed a far-reaching epic Everglades restoration project. He also cut massive amounts of school funding and was the primary author of the beloved USA PATRIOT Act, so don't wet your britches with glee. On the other hand -- and there's ALWAYS another hand with Florida politicians -- he has opposed Attorney General Ashcroft's efforts to make the PATRIOT Act permanent, and claimed that it's powers have been sorely abused (no gator scat, Sherlock). Graham is a wily and experienced veteran of the political game, and while numbers have been less than impressive in the primaries, that hasn't stopped the pundits from naming him as a top choice for the coveted bitch-slot on the final Democratic ticket. Ahhh ... but who, you ask, will take the top position?

I'll tell you one thing, it won't be:

Joseph Isadore Lieberman: Isadore? Anyway, I'm sure most of you remember Liberman as a vague, pallid presence who stood behind the amusing talking robot during the 2000 election. Ol' Joltin' Joe hails from Connecticut, and is another lifer in the legislature. Lieberman fosters a lot of compelling and original ideas; he wants to create an American Center for Cures (no, really), where researchers from all across the globe will concentrate massively funded efforts to eradicate one disease after another, tossing the Grim Reaper out on his bony ass. He wants to open cyberspace to an unprecedented amount of free global trade, creating a floating island of commerce far removed from petty human concerns. And he wants to wean America off of imported oil, an important aim that most of the other candidates have taken up strongly since Lieberman started calling the tune. Of course, this is also the gentleman who introduced the V-Chip and the Office of Homeland Security. A technocrat in the truest sense of the word, Lieberman is a frightening futuristic dictator wrapped up in a weaselly Jewish man from New England. He constantly finds ways to use God to trump his way to moral rectitude in political debates, and he seeks to stop the production of movies and television that peddle sex and violence, which would leave us all watching Trading Spaces and Thirty-Minute Meals day and night ... although that Rachel Ray is a pretty hot little number, so we'll probably just stick to Trading Spaces. As long as they don't do any more bedrooms. As a man obligated by ethnic and geographical factors to be a Democrat, Lieberman has always been tormented by the fact that he can't be a Republican, and it shows. Of course, his name WAS on a ticket that did, in fact, win the popular vote in 2000, so he's still got a glamour of star power to him.

And speaking of political star power, or for that matter speaking of political ghouls who ghost around Capitol Hill surviving on lobbyist dinners and gladhanding osmosis until they can straggle through another doomed run for the Presidency, here's:

Richard Andrew Gephardt: Gephardt is one of those wraiths who get into office during the disco era and stay there through two or more disco revivals. Elected as a representative for Missouri in 1977, Gephardt has never left office, and served as House Democratic Leader for 13 years. He is a hardcore party man, serving as the motivational force to block a lot of Reagan and Bush legislation and working like a dog to push every single thing Clinton handed him through the House. Being involved in national politics for so very, very long have muddled Gephardt's politics to the point of mass confusion. He supports universalized health care ... with private backing. He wants to raise the minimum wage ... through the offices of the WTO. He wants to make teaching a more attractive career ... buy creating a teaching corps modeled on the ROTC. Gephardt has varied from the mainline by opposing NAFTA, which is something not even frontrunner John Kerry can claim. On the other hand, he has been an ardent and vocal supporter of globalization, and has used the phrase "world government" on more occasions than I'm comfortable with, anyway.

And that'll dispose of the refuse. The expendables. The wannabes, has-beens, and ain't-never-wases. That's enough. Now let's talk about the people who have really made an impact. Let's start at the bottom of the top, with -- you'll wanna salute here -- the General:

General Wesley Kanne Clark: Clark is a four-star general who earned his stripes by forwarding the Dayton Accords in 1995 and heading the U.N. intervention in Kosovo. He's also a native Arkansasan, and as such has the active backing of Arkansas' favorite tabloid fodder, Bill an' Hil' Clinton. That, essentially, is all you need to know about Wesley Clark. An uninspired politician with prior experience as an investment banker and laboratory chairman in addition to being able to kill a man with his bare hands, Clark's planks are tepid but palatable basic Democratic fare: balance the budget, save the environment, more money for every program on God's green earth, and first and foremost ... do something about this terrible war in Iraq. With no other experience to draw on, Clark has brought all his guns to bear on the war. All of his finest soundbites have been drawn from his full-bore, shining-star opposition to our incursion onto foreign soil. Good, strong, relevant stuff, but Clark never demonstrated that he'll be capable of producing compelling soundbytes AFTER the war ends and apologies have been offered and attention has been paid. And really, the Presidency of the United States is a four-year collection of soundbytes, and they'd better be damned good ones. Wesley's flagged out, but he's a top gun for that second slot on the ephemeral Democratic ticket.

Clark's problem was that he ran out of soundbytes. Our next contender experienced the other problem ... one or two soundbytes too many. My main man, the Doctor:

Howard Brush Dean: Dean served honorably as governor and lieutenant governor of Vermont for sixteen years, instituting near-universal health care and legalizing gay civil unions. Dean balanced the budget every year he was in office and kept businesses under a firm, unyielding thumb. His campaign was carefully crafted, with an answer for every question and a song and dance for every occasion. He drew the immediate attention of the media with his well-oiled campaign machinery, thousands of young volunteers, and massive war chest accrued from Web microdonations. He was poised for greatness, drawing blood on Bush right away and handling the first set of debates with a smooth adroitness. And then he got mad. And when Dean gets mad, he gets fiery. Not to get into gory details, the good Doctor sacrificed himself on the altar of public opinion, and has fallen apart at the seams. But the machine he created is chugging on, and guarantees that he'll be a motivational force when the bizarre bazaar of DNC rolls around.

A little thin on Dean? Sure. But if you want to see everything I think about the Doc, just go back a few friggin' entries and read about it in excruciating detail. In case you missed it during the three months I left it up. So now we've come down to the wire, and the two men who are dueling to the death like razor-wielding pimps for the role of top canine. First, the nominal underdog:

Johnny Reid Edwards: John Edwards ... is ... man. A whole lotta nothin' wrapped up in Southern charm, an affable smile, and a tolerable hairdo. A young Dixie lawyuh of th' ol' school, who fought for the rights of the people as detailed in his ponderous book Four Cases, Edwards speaks to that great undifferentiated mass, the People. Specifically, the Southern white people, but that's as close as anyone gets. A rather hawkish Democrat who is more disappointed with Bush's failure to work with the United Nations and NATO than with the war on Iraq itself, Edwards' goals are simple and measurable. He has a fairly inspiring plan for teacher incentives, a few modest proposals to adopt the tax code to encourage middle class investing, and a habit of emphasizing that he's not a politician. Despite his relative inexperience, having only become senator from North Carolina in 2000, he has proven adept at the flip-flopping game, bowing immediately to organized labor and changing his votes on free trade agreements with Asian nations and paying lip service to the NAACP boycott of South Carolina. He is a smooth operator, adept at handling angry Southern juries, and if elected, he would certainly be the most handsome president since Kennedy. Which counts for something. Especially if he makes it onto a coin.

And speaking of JFK, let's give you a brief rundown of the man who's had his ghoulish visage on news magazines across the world, turning more stomachs than topless shots of Rosie O'Donnell.

John Forbes Kerry: Another Catholic JFK from Massachusetts, but don't let the Irish nomenclature fool you. Kerry was born to a Hungarian man whose name was changed at Ellis Island, although his mother was Winthrop by way of the Forbes clan. As co-founder of the Vietnam Veterans of America and a soldier decorated with a Silver Star, a Bronze Star, and three Purple Hearts, Kerry has almost as much military cred as the Generic General. Hell, even more. He's done some good stuff, too. He was on the Subcommittee on Narcotics and Terrorism of the Foreign Relations Committee which uncovered President Ronald "Bonzo" Reagan's role in the infamously labyrinthine Iran-Contra Affair. All the way back in 1997, he wrote a fine book called The New War that outlined multilateral policies for dealing with international criminal cartels and terrorist cells. The British like him because he's dignified. Asians like him because he has a strong work ethic and an interest in regulated multilateral trade agreements. New England likes him because he's from New England. He's an adept politician with (shockingly enough) Senate experience, a strong law background, and a smooth technique for disseminating his catchphrases into the popular culture. His "why not?" speech is especially compelling. A few things can be held against Kerry, such as his support for the Iraq War Resolution which is kind of funny in the light of his vigorous denunciation for Bush's resolution to go to war with Iraq. Also, during a VVA demonstration where veterans threw their medals on the steps of the Capitol as a sign of disgust with the politicians who had sent so many young men to die ... a demonstration Kerry had orchestrated ... Kerry proudly marched up in his tattered uniform with a sneer on his lips ... and tossed down his ribbons. He's still got the medals. A little oily? Maybe. But a smart man.

But is he smart enough, oily enough, balls-to-the-walls bloody-minded enough to trim the Shrub? To haul down the Last American Dynasty like vengeful fishmongers toppling a bronze statue of Saddam? That remains to be seen. He has managed to marshal media support with surprising adroitness, capitalizing on the gaping void left by the self-destruction of Dean in a way no other candidate has managed, and he has been supposed to have a presidential "look". But we'll see ... we'll see.

So now you know, kids. And knowing, as you are no doubt aware, is half the battle.

The other half is getting off your damned butt and voting. So get out there. Punch those chads right in the nuts. Tear the wings off that butterfly. Help put the blood-drunk elephant back in his cage, or be trampled for another four years.

The choice is yours, in theory.

But if you don't go out and vote Democrat, I'm going to come rip out your aorta through your ass. With a shrimp fork.

God bless America.

*****

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