My Fellow Americans,
How about a little primary analysis, eh? I’d like to say that I’ve been busy these last two months staunchly campaigning, attending town hall meetings, raising funds, and getting my message of hope out to the people. But I can’t lie to America, friends, so here’s the truth: I spent most of the last two months drinking Scotch and playing PS2. And I hereby promise to appoint Kratos as my Secretary of Defense!
Anyway. The Iowa, New Hampshire, and (for the GOP only) Wyoming primaries are behind us, and those traditionally overhyped contests have yielded some surprising results. Last Thursday in Iowa, two long-neglected groups dominated the election, and delivered a big “fuck you” to the Clinton/Giuliani hubris machine. On the Democrat side, progressives who want to move beyond the divisiveness of skin color and party affiliation and keep this country from going down the toilet voted for Barack Obama. On the Republican side, Christians who are tired of phony atheist NeoCons pretending to give a shit about Jesus elected a real Christian for once, in the form of Mike Huckabee. While these results seem surprising, we all secretly knew it had to happen sooner or later.
In the GOP-only primary in Wyoming on Saturday, Mitt Romney won, probably because he bothered to show up once or twice. I was going to try to evoke some kind of disgust at the way the media ignored the whole thing, but when was the last time you heard anyone get excited about Wyoming in any context? They’ve got three electoral votes. They’re the leading exporter of trona, a mineral used to make baking soda. Hose me down. Hell, I didn’t bother campaigning there either.
And then there was New Hampshire’s primary on Tuesday, where voters took one look at the shakeups in Iowa and decided to deliver a “fuck you” of their own by electing the most long-running establishment monsters available, Hillary Clinton and John “McLovin” McCain. If McCain were the Straight Talk Express evangelist-bashing chop-busting badass of the year 2000, I would be a lot more excited about this. Oh sure, I know it’s possible, even likely, that the lovably cantankerous old McCain is still in there somewhere. But to find out, we’ll have to give up our first shot at a genuinely interesting election in years.
A McCain candidacy will be viewed as a “Let’s get this over with” affair. If he becomes the nominee, it will only be because there’s a consensus that it’s “his turn.” Sorta like Kerry, or Bob Dole. It’s the political equivalent of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy movie: you know it won’t be great, but you waited for it for so long that you feel obligated to check it out. The solution is to pit McCain against someone more exciting. Obama, for example.
McCain vs. Clinton, on the other hand, is not promising. Hillary Clinton already feels like a McCain-style Presidential Wannabe in training, who will spend the next four or five election cycles wondering when her turn will come. Put two of those up against each other in the general election, and people will go with the most boring choice possible. Probably McCain.
For those of you keeping score, that’s five total victories to five completely different people, none of whom are Rudy Giuliani, and none of whom are The Shadow Candidate. Dennis Kucinich is already quietly directing his supporters in Obama’s direction, and John Edwards and Bill Richardson will probably both do the same in about five weeks. Ron Paul will continue to win a small percentage of the votes, at least until he gets enough attention that some major news outlet finally bothers to do some research on what a nutcase he is. Mike Gravel is far more entertaining than Duncan Hunter, and neither will ever get anywhere (though I hope Gravel makes more YouTube videos). Best of all, as February rolls around, these primary results will finally help the media realize that Fred Thompson was never a serious candidate.
Oh, one more thing: you’ll never see The Shadow Candidate cry when his motives are questioned. Or at any other time, either. And that’s your loss, because The Shadow Candidate’s tears are made of straight gin.
Thank you, and may the Beak bless America.
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