I stumbled across this the today: How come we choose from just two people for
President and fifty for Miss America?
Having no particular affinity for and much disdain with both
of our "major" political parties, I started looking into this
conundrum. Turns out at the start of
Primary season (so long ago), there were actually two major divisions of
candidates running: Principal Candidates and Other Candidates. Yup, that's what they are called:
"Other." Counting the total
number of registered candidates, there were eighteen considered to be Principal
Candidates and 524 considered to be Other Candidates from a multitude of
mainstream and not-so-mainstream political parties.
Yes, folks, when this all started, we had a choice of 542
people in the running to be the 2012 President of the United States of America.
I started wondering, too, with such a poor showing in his
four years in office, what Democratic Party in their right mind would
re-nominate the guy who's in the Oval Office right now? Turns out they didn't have to. There were actually two Principals and
fifty-five Others in that race.
Fifty-seven Democratic possibilities and they still went with the
ineffective one.
They could've nominated Raphael Herman from Miami
Beach. That would've been cool - the
Presidential vacation home could have been in South Beach. Spring Break would totally rock. How about Jeffrey Harlan Boss of New
Jersey? Jersey's really popular with the
vacuous reality TV crowd, and he could be Boss Boss. Darren Lloyd Dunsmoor from Texas might be a
lucky choice with double letters in each of his names, plus he could use the
tagline, "Dunsmoor dones more."
Al Hamburg of Wyoming would have worked out well, too, because then
there would be a Presidential Hamburger for every American. Utah's Cody Judy's slogan could be "Cody
Judy: Not a Doody." How about a
strong name, like Jeffrey D. Proud of Minnesota? "Proud to vote Proud as Democrat for
President." And then there's always
Vermin Supreme of Massachusetts. Strange
but true, he/she/it is on the list of registered Other Democratic
Candidates.
The Republicans are no better. They started out with thirteen Principals,
156 Others, and then one more Other who didn't know where the frik the line
was, apparently, and registered as a Republican Republican. Out of 169 plus one dope Republican
Republican candidates, we are left with Willard (Ben's other rat friend)
"Mitt" Romney supposedly of Massachusetts (used to be Governor) or Utah
(used to be a resident) or somewhere, and the incessant hanger-on Ron Paul of
Texas.
I think we would do better to elect this Republican, and I
don't even know if it's a man or a woman, but this has to be the best name in
the race: Yinka Abosede Adeshina
of Florida. How great would it be to
have a President named Yinka? Yinka the
Dinka like Yertle the Turtle. Then
there's this poor guy whose name is simply too long for the ballot, even with
the first two parts of it as initials - J.
E. Wendell Kennedy Banks of Pennsylvania. Of course, if the name says Kennedy, you know
there's either a high-powered rifle or a bridge to Chappaquidick in his future,
and neither leads to a good outcome unless your name is Ted Kennedy, in which
case you're a drunken murderous criminal who will win re-election after
re-election and be revered in the Senate for the rest of your useless life. Plus, everyone knows if you're named Kennedy
it's in your blood to be a Liberal Democrat, and this guy is running for the
wrong party.
There are some other great names on the Republican Others
roll, too: Rusty Bliss (OH), Randy Crow
(NC), Nick Farmer Cuevas (IN), Tim Texas Slim Day (TX), Zubi Diamond (CA), Jeff
Lawman (NH), and Jonathan The Impaler Sharkey (FL). There are some tongue twisters, as well: Kalemkarian
(CA), Neuenschwander (WA), Pflughaupt (M0), Praprotnik (MO), and Wuensche (TX). There are some rather risqué Republican Other
characters in the race whose names would drum up a lot of chortling laughter
when announced from the podium. Imagine
announcing President Tittle (VA), Rudick (NY), or Lydick (MD) in a room full of
teenagers and degenerates. Mayhem would
ensue.
The candidates'
names are not the only hilarious part about elections. There are party affiliations no one ever
heard of before, and these are legitimately registered political
organizations. In addition to the more
mainstream parties (the Big Two plus Independent, Libertarian, Green,
Socialist, etc.), there are the American Third Position (hopefully ballet and
not something kinky), Objectivist (their theme song is "Whatever It Is,
I'm Against It!"), Prohibition Party (they're not out to save Happy Hour,
I'm betting), Mike's Party (I was at that party in the late seventies), and Absolute
Dictator Party (Obama wannabes). There are
also my two personal favorites, the Jedi Party and the Ping Pong Party. Each one of these, plus dozens of other
bizarrely named and mainstream/extremist groups had at least one (some many
more) registered candidates for the Primary last year.
With all those
wonderful choices, how in the name of American decency did we get down to the
choices we have left? I honestly don't
know what I am going to do come November (except for the Massachusetts Senate
race in which I am voting for Scott Brown because let's face it, the man is
smokin' hot), but I will assure you this:
If these idiots in Washington don't hurry up and get their shit
together, I'm writing in Horace Godzilla Ashley of California. He's running on the Third Telepathic Party
ticket. He may not be as famous as the
mainstream guys, but with his ESP he'll know what's going to happen, and there
has to be some solace in that.
