American Lament

The New Hampshire primary will be, hands down, the most important event in modern history. Assuming the fact that an inconclusive, grandstanding beauty contest will determine who leads this nation for the next four years.

This, of course is looking from that looking-glass known as Iowa, a complete hash of a race where up was down, right was left, and black was, ahem, white. K, maybe that last one doesn’t fit so well, all things considered. I’ll be frank and admit that I kind of forgot about the Iowa caucuses the day they were held, despite being reminded on what appeared to be two thousand occasions for the weeks beforehand, and managed to catch the reports of who won the contest on both sides, a minor miracle in and of itself what with only about 2% of the precincts reporting.

The complicated and insane primary situation we insist on perpetuating to determine our head of state is such that the national parties—organizations not known to hold particularly rational ideas concerning pretty much anything—tried to force the states to not draw out the campaign for what seems like sixteen years by penalizing their delegate count for holding their contests early, a rather creative solution that had the effect of still having a campaign that lasts about sixteen years long.

Iowa had its share of surprises. Okay, not really. The race between Barack Obama, John Edwards, and Hillary Clinton was uncharacteristically tight; most people assumed a walk for Hillary. Unless you were from Chicago, in which it was only natural that Obama was going to win handily. Or if you were from the south, when it was unimaginable that John Edwards would lose. Or if you were from the planet Kryypzleon and thought it inconceivable that Dennis Kuchinich wouldn’t crack double digits.

The real surprise was Mike Huckabee. Huckabee, previously known primarily for his massive weight loss and his ties to elder statesman and policy wonk Chuck Norris, pitched a blend of moral values, tax reform, and Soviet-style populism that must have really sparked the imagination of many an Iowan farmer well-coached in regressive revenue schemes and the particulars of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. Either that, or he promised to dump a truckload of taxpayer money into ethanol subsidies, though to be fair I have to assume that if you were any candidate campaigning in Iowa that was already promised.

Next up is New Hampshire, where it is do-or-die time for many candidates. Romney is running in his own backyard, so a substandard showing could derail his campaign. New Hampshire’s large libertarian community may come out in force for Ron Paul, but that group may be diluted by the institutionally insane community in New Hampshire, where Paul may have to split his votes with Thompson. And while Guiliani has largely ignored the state to concentrate on larger bounties, fully aware of the momentum that is fueling the likes of Huckabee, he might like to see some voters turn out that remember both 9/11 and what, exactly, should be done to Jamaican scofflaws when they run afoul of the law, or walk outside. And 9/11.

It’s also notable that there was a caucus between Iowa and New Hampshire—Wyoming held theirs a few days ago. Granted, it didn’t get a lot of publicity, and the fact that Romney won was almost but not quite a forgone conclusion given the state’s proximity to Not South Carolina, where if you have the tenacity to be a Mormon you had best have at least charted “Go Away Little Girl.” And since it held its caucus early, it was stripped of half of its massive delegate count, minimizing its already reduced influence. One assumes that they were trying to convert their tiny, lily-white, single-industry state into a new New Hampshire; this will succeed, of course, when Halliburton opens its new facility in Concord.

Also in Wyoming, the Democrats were going to hold their caucus, but he had a doctor’s appointment that day.

The unexpected results of Iowa have made a particularly bland campaign for the Democrats quite an emotional affair. Hillary was close to tears about the setbacks in her campaign. Crying in presidential campaigns is generally considered a tactical error; Ed Muskie pretty much self-imploded way back in 1972 when he appeared on the steps of the Manchester Union-Leader and wept like a scared little girl because someone said he didn’t like French Canadians. It turns out this someone was Nixon, in the form of an anonymous letter sent from the Dirty Tricks Department, which I think in and of itself would make anyone cry.

But, of course, society states that women are allowed to cry, just a little. Right? Maybe not. When Pat Schroeder, a rather shrill feminist congresswoman from the unlikely state of Colorado, dropped out of the 1988 race, she bawled like a scared little girl, crumpling into an emotional heap of hormones and wasted dreams after announcing her withdrawal. Most of America stepped back and said, whoa. How can a woman lead America against Russia when she can barely handle losing to Mike Dukakis?

And, of course, many believe that Hillary, long suspected of being an emotionless husk of a woman, is simply making a rank calculation when she turns on the waterworks. A possibility, of course, but I’m not going to ask. You go right ahead. I like my voice at this octave.

Last time, we looked at the historical impact of third parties, but let’s take a look at those candidates and organizations running in next year’s presidential election. It will be both illuminating and entertaining, the exact combination of adjectives we need in this country right now, and is certainly an improvement over the current prevailing adjectives, those being smug, incompetent, and female.

Libertarian Party: This party will most likely have one of its more successful years, thanks in part to the candidacy of one Ron Paul, current representative from Texas. He ran as a libertarian candidate for president nearly twenty years ago, garnering nearly dozens of votes and showing up in the footnotes of the Wikipedia in perpetuity. He has received a surprising amount of support from Republicans disaffected by the current leadership, libertarians who actually want to be able to win at least one election that is greater than 4th Ward City Council of Nampa, Idaho, and Democrats somewhat concerned with the certain nomination in their party of anyone who will immediately dispatch a three-prong invasion of West Point, the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, and Bentonville, Arkansas. On the other hand, Paul’s success is only remarkable in contrast to other third party successes; he still barely registers above five percent in polls for Republicans, somewhere in popularity between Larry Craig and an atheist Iranian editor of the New York Times. His most notable achievement within the GOP so far has been to embarrass John McCain and enrage Rudy Giuliani, neither of which is all that particularly difficult.

Green Party: The Green Party has always had a love-hate relationship with…well, hell, with everything. They love seeing hundreds of thousands of people show up at a rally, but they hate seeing hundreds of thousands of people exist. They love the creation of hybrid cars, but they hate the fact that it requires the existence of an actual corporation that makes money to produce it. They love the increasing popularity of hormone-free beef and free-range chicken, but hate the fact that actual cows and chickens are being eaten. They love Ralph Nader’s anti-corporate tirades and public popularity, but they also hate him since he obviously conspired with Sandra Day O’Conner, Diebold, and the Florida Department of State to single-handedly elect George W. Bush. Anyway, the chance of them being satisfied with, well, hell, anything is fairly remote, though one can say the same about the voters.

Constitutional Party: A ragtag collection of anti-tax crusaders and real crusaders have somehow propped up the Constitution Party for a few decades now. They generally sympathize with the same sort of anti-government sentiments as the libertarians, only with the added benefit of not having everyone in the room faint in an enveloping sense of self-importance if someone mentions God in passing, and the conventions tend to smell a lot less like pot and sex. Unfortunately, the Constitutional party expends most of their energy every four years trying to nominate the Almighty, a daunting task given the strict ballot requirements in California.

Natural Law Party: OK, strictly speaking they’re not a player in 2008 and has effectively dissolved from existence in the United States, but I just absolutely love the concept of basing an entire political party on a touchy-feely abstract concept based on equal parts transcendental meditation, holding hands and chanting te deums, and encouraging a positive energy flow to solve all of the world’s problems. I mean, besides the Democratic Party.

Independents: Plenty of candidates, distasteful of the two major parties, find it otherwise self-aggrandizing enough to run under no party affiliation at all. This has the benefit of not requiring to be chained to an unpopular platform or associated with Bible-thumping rich white oil executives or lesbian tree-hugging social workers, but also has the drawback of only being able to raise funds equivalent to a maximum of six junior bacon cheeseburgers and change. Because of this, the independent run is highly popular with self-made men and celebrities, neither of which need to sell their soul to the teachers’ union or Amalgamated Steel, since they long ago sold their soul, depending on their source of notoriety, to get venture capital or a glamorous tit job.

The most realistic independent candidate is Michael Bloomberg, a financier who spent most of his life as a Democrat, ran as a Republican, then filed as an independent, just the kind of rampant indecision we look for in a leader. Currently the mayor of New York, he did an outstanding job of holding George Pataki’s coat while George Pataki held Rudolph Giuliani’s coat in the aftermath of 9/11. Bloomberg had the misfortune of picking up pretty much when Giuliani left off mere months after the attacks, though to be fair Giuliani did his best to stick around. He’s done his best to not do anything at all; for instance, his tenure is notable in the fact that he has successfully prevented the police force from shoving a broomstick up any immigrant’s anus.

History is riddled with perpetual candidates, but one of the most notable (and crankiest) is Michael Moriarty. Not only does he have that cool sinister-sounding last name, but also he has a wonderful and curious combination of policy stances that are sure to be ballot-box gold. For instance he is against abortion and embryonic stem-cell research…but also against Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the Catholics. He’s a modestly accomplished jazz pianist, former boozehound, self-proclaimed political exile to Canada and subsequent honorary mayor of Winnipeg, and most famously played lawyer Ben Stone on the television. This last fact may be his Achilles’ Heel, of course. The chance of a Law & Order actor running for the presidency is fairly low.

During any presidential campaign, any number of third party candidates may make a run for the nomination. Aside from their entertainment value, they very occasionally have an impact on our political culture, which, to be fair, is probably more than actual, elected presidents have made. Today we’ll took at the history of these parties.

History is riddled with single-issue cranks and hard-boiled extremists running for the top position in the land, many with varying degrees of seriousness. Many individuals (I almost said “men” but then I realized that a rather significantly larger proportion of individuals who run for president as third party candidates are female, and by “significantly larger proportion” I mean “more than zero”) simply run to bring a particular issue to the table; some run to spoil another’s chance at victory; some run vanity campaigns to satisfy their egos and, apparently, are very much interested in the well-being of the advertising budgets of network television and lawyers from moderately-prestigious law firms; and some run because they’re batshit crazy.

Some, of course, run for all of those reasons.

The history of third parties is fascinatingly boring. On the one hand, the causes they espouse, ranging from free love to the colonization of Mars, are brilliantly different than talking about, say, the Alternative Minimum Tax or our Southeast Asian Foreign Policy. On the other hand, they very rarely, if ever, make that much of an impact on the actual, legitimate result of an election, since close elections tend to keep spoilers away from the ballot unless your name happens to rhyme with “Dalph Vader.”

There are three significant elections that a fringe party made headway at the presidential ballot box. Way back in 1856, a little-known third party attempted to challenge the entrenched Democratic Party and a decaying Whig Party, running on the doomed platform of liberating the slaves or, at the very least, being a touch nicer to them. While the brand-spankin’-new Republican Party lost fairly badly that time—elections back then were touch-and-go affairs, where the actual votes cast by property-owning males tended to be secondary to other, more pecuniary matters—they came back with a vengeance, winning a four-way race in 1860, an event so anticipated with jubilance by the entire population 618,000 people died in celebration.

In 1912, the rather curious affair of the presidential election was handled by walrus, a drunken bull, and a cold fish. Strictly speaking, this is a fringe party in name only. Teddy Roosevelt, having spent a term and a half formulating policy centered chiefly around eating the raw flesh of bears and aiming a crossbow at the future Kaiser, retired to the safari after handing the keys to William Howard Taft, a man so large he once got stuck in a textbook of obligatory presidential facts. Taft proved to be a lackluster president, spending most of his time sleeping, which to be honest I think more presidents would be better off doing.

Nonetheless, Roosevelt, after being denied the nomination at the Republican Convention, created his own third party. It is the testament of the man that he was able to form an entire party unto himself simply via the act of existing. He called this party the “Bull Moose” party, the most absurd name I’ve ever heard for a political coalition since the Greenback Labor Party, which I am convinced was simply the whimsical creation of a confused and apparently colorblind racist. He came up with the name after a speech in which he said that he felt as “strong as a textbook of obligatory presidential facts.”

The last time a third party candidate blipped on the radar was H. Ross Perot, a computer-company magnate. Granted, he made his money when computers will strictly cardboard-and-vacuum-tube affairs, but they money was still green after all these years, so he was legitimately rich. This of course means he was officially able to purchase a spot on the ballot. It is a uniquely American thing that the population assumes anyone who is able to operate a business successfully has the management experience to run an entire country, the presumption being that the business they run has employees hired on the basis of their connections and can never be fired for any offense less than urinating in the Pope’s Wheaties, and even then; the output of the business cannot be measured except in terms of how photogenic the employees look on campaign brochures; and any decision you make on either side will immediately be considered 1) racist; 2) sexist; and 3) somehow hurting the poor, all three problems of which can be alleviated if a new bridge is built in their district.

Anyway, Perot’s main platform seemed to be a mixture of 1) I’m rich! and 2) You’re not. His campaign was an eclectic one, eschewing much of the modern campaign’s techniques. He used a series of infomercials to send his message of fiscal prudence and non-batshit-craziness to the masses, and his folksy manner reminded most voters of their vaguely remembered slightly bigoted uncle. His intermittent campaign, combined with the fact that voters are reluctant to elect a clinically insane man as president, doomed his campaign to failure. His legacy still lives on, of course; American voters have come to terms with this, and have embraced clinical insanity as a political virtue. Dalph Vader would be proud.

The Republicans this year are not a particularly united bunch. They differ on many key issues, such as immigration, Iraq, and to what degree to denounce abortion. But they are united in one solitary fact, and that is this: Ronald Reagan was the single greatest human being on the face of the planet for ever and ever Amen.

As such, many of the GOP candidates will be digging up and resurrecting the memory of Ronald Reagan to try and win the votes of those who still clasp longingly for another Morning in America. There are several paths to true Reagan enlightenment, and only that candidate that masters them all will be the nominee.

Sound Like the Gipper: Ronald Reagan was called the “Great Communicator,” and not without reason. Reagan was a master orator who could turn any event, no matter its objective insignificance, into an appeal for how great America was and the margin of victory in kicking every one else’s ass. He would wake up and have a bowl of Frankenberry for breakfast, and he’s turn to his wife and say, “Nancy, this bowl of Frankenberry represents all that is good with America. Its patriotic taste reminds me of the American Dream, and nothing, not sour milk, not soggy grain, not even the communists, can ever take that away. God bless America.” And Nancy, like clockwork, would be so moved she would immediately volunteer for the army, and Ron would laugh and laugh, ‘cause they don’t let ladies in the military!

Govern Like the Gipper: Candidates seeking the presidency tend to run campaigns much like they govern. In this case, looking at Reagan’s governing style may be an effective way to run a campaign operation. Reagan had a rather hands-off governing style. As in, he spent his time governing not doing much of anything at all. He’s walk into a room full of advisors and say “We need to end communism. I’ll be back after lunch. Let me know how it goes.” And sure enough when he got back from Hardee’s after he’d finish reading that article in Boy’s Life about thistles his advisors would present him with a plan to end communism. That’s the kind of leadership style Reagan had—forceful, to the point, and, apparently, incredibly lazy. Granted, the plans that were hatched were pretty much always some variation of “throw a tactical nuke in Brezhnev’s colonoscopy bag,” but at least something was getting done. Or, rather, the appearance of something was getting done, which in politics is just as important.

Look Like the Gipper: Let’s face it, guys and gals: Reagan looked good. He was pretty smokin’ for an octogenarian politician. Most politicians look like a cross between Bosnia and a plate of Chinese dog food. Reagan’s background as an actor certainly helped in this; Hollywood studios are reluctant to hire double baggers unless you have some sort of compensating factor, such as being the nephew of Francis Ford Coppola. And let’s just take a look at the previous occupants; time had not been kind to Nixon’s widow’s peak or LBJ’s anythings. Aging well may not be genetically possible for many, but certain nominees in the past election certainly found salvation in Botox injections. Current candidates should certainly consult “image specialists.” Either that or inject dioxins into Mitt Romney’s face when he’s sleeping.

Act Like the Gipper: In politics, it always pays to emulate those you admire. Some, of course, take it a little bit further; it isn’t particularly effective if you are, say, Joseph Biden and the year is 1988, and you are plagiarizing a reasonably important political figure in Great Britain, and the amount of effort used to find out this fact and have it be publicized by a rival for the nomination is less than it would have been to write your own damn speech. But many are more adept at co-opting not only the positions and doctrines of their heroes, but their style and personality as well. Reagan’s original career was an actor, of course, so he spent his early years pretending to be someone else. Which was, essentially, himself. God bless Ron, but it doesn’t take much effort to play a straight-arrow World War II veteran with a pretty fiancé in all your movies when you are, in reality, a straight-arrow World War II veteran with a pretty fiancé. (I am assuming, of course, that Ron didn’t keep a chimpanzee around at his house answering the telephone.) Some even take it to more extremes than that. Fred Thompson, the actor known primarily for his role as the District Attorney on Law & Order, oh, and he might have been a real-life senator at one point as well, is in the front running for the presidency. If he receives the job, we’ll have an actor acting like an actor acting like a president. Too cute by half, indeed, which means he should fit right in.

Forget Like the Gipper: You know, late in his presidency, many jokes were crafted detailing Ron’s inability to remember various facts, such as whether he authorized the sale of arms to the Contras for the release of Iranian hostages or where he left his glasses. It was funny to gently prod the elderly statesman, and, hey, he’s only human and we all forget sometimes, eh? Then it turns out he had Alzheimer’s, and then we weren’t allowed to laugh anymore. Fair enough. Still, it may be a useful craft to conveniently “forget” certain facts about your history and your present. For instance, Rudy Guiliani can conveniently “forget” was his position on abortion is, at least until, oh, I don’t know, say, Septmber 5th, 2008. Mitt Romney can “forget” his religious affiliation when campaigning in West Virginia, California, and…well, hell, any state outside of Utah and southern Idaho. Tom Tancredo can “forget” that he has no chance of winning—oh, wait, that’s already happened.

Get Elected Like the Gipper: This one remains to be seen, though at least Reagan had an incredibly anti-talented co-lead in both 1980 and 1984. Hillary fans, as always, take note.

In our regularly scheduled attempt to keep the average reader up to date on the 2008 White House Race, here is the first in an installment of columns to introduce, analyze, and predict the various points of fortune to the candidates running for office, even though at this point it is impossible to predict anything with any amount of accuracy outside of “Someone will win the election” and “That someone will be beholden to either one set of corporations or another, depending on whether we count votes multiple times per voter or count dollar amounts instead of votes.”

Rudy Giuliani: Currently one of the more popular figures in the general population, though not necessarily for GOP primary voters, Giuliani appears to be in the first tier of candidates. His qualifications involve his handling of New York City after 9/11, the post-9/11 effects of New York City, and dealing with the reaction of New York City to the events on 9/11. Given his experience after 9/11, the post-9/11 New York environment is one of Giuliani’s most significant achievements, not counting the time he spent in office during the aftermath of 9/11. His platform so far is to proclaim that it is America’s duty to “repeatedly shove the broomstick handle of liberty into the anus of fanatical terrorism.”

Barack Obama: Barack Obama is currently the appointed messiah of the Democratic party: a charismatic, reasonably well-respected politician from a big, electorally rich state. Alas, Obama has one obvious socially historical handicap that may prevent him from getting elected to the most powerful position in the world: he is a Senator. Senators are notoriously bad at getting elected President; the last person to do so was John F. Kennedy, who was elected shortly after birth. He also has to overcome his reputation as the inexperienced anointed, which, given the track record of Democrats nominating congressional pages as running mates, should not be difficult to handle. Also, he’s black.

John Edwards: The former Vice Presidential candidate has much the same going for him than he did in 2004: good looks, charisma, and not being John Kerry. After the failed 2004 campaign, he helped organized the One America Committee, whose sole accomplishment in the past to years appears to be burning down a Wal-mart in Providence to the ground. As a Southerner, he can be expected to help crack the Republicans’ hold in that area, though he may also need to work to earn the votes of those suspicious of voting for someone of the age of 12.

Hillary Clinton: One of contemporary politics’ most divisive figures, Hillary Clinton is running for President, though for the sake of accuracy it should be noted that her campaign for the Presidency started approximately thirty-five years ago. Hillary’s handicaps are also her greatest assets: her years treating the First Ladyship as a cabinet position. Some people, known as the “South,” resent the fact that she usurped an otherwise ceremonial duty into a policy-making position. Other people, namely “Hollywood and George Soros,” note that this as an asset rather than a liability. Ultimately, the Democrats’ chances of winning in 2008 hinge on whether Hillary is the Democratic nominee. On the other side, the Republicans’ chances of winning in 2008 hinge on whether Hillary is the Democratic nominee. Also, she’s a woman.

John McCain: The Senator from Arizona, long the media darling of the right, recently announced his intentions to run for President. While he made an impressive showing in the 2000 campaign and has been a intermittently loyal commandant in the GOP since then, he hopes to differentiate himself this time around with the fact that he is about 1,000 years old and, with only a slight provocation such as drawing on an inside straight, could still beat the living bloody piss out of Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, and Wesley Clark all at once. (John Edwards, too, but being able to defeat John Edwards in a fistfight is not exactly a differentiator.)

Mitt Romney: The former governor of Massachusetts and, more notably, chairman of the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, is fast becoming the social conservatives’ choice for the nomination. On the plus side, he was handily elected in one of the most liberal states in the nation, ushered in one of the first state-mandated health care systems, balanced a bloated budget, and took control of the increasingly mismanaged “Big Dig” program. On the minus side, his first name is the same as an article of clothing grandmothers make as a confirmation gift. Also, he’s Mormon.

Al Gore: Al Gore has been very Nixonesque in his time outside of office. Like Nixon, he lost a bitterly close election, then chose to sit out the next election, positioning himself for a savior candidate when the front runners in the subsequent election eat each other alive. Unlike Nixon, though, Gore didn’t grill puppies for sport or buy a Chinese girl for 50 camels from Nassar back in the early 70’s. While he gained an unwarranted reputation as a stiff media bore as Vice President, then sealed an unwarranted reputation as a chronic prevaricator as a presidential candidate, he now runs the risk of gaining an unwarranted reputation as intellectual Hamlet forever disappointing his followers, a rather unfortunate hybrid of Adlai Stevenson, Mario Cuomo, and Eddie Murphy.

Newt Gingrich: Like Al Gore, Newt Gingrich has sat safely in the sidelines waiting for a golden opportunity. His recent admission of having an affair while administering the impeachment process against Bill Clinton has harmed his chances of being a credible candidate. (Though, to be fair, he has asked for divine forgiveness on this front. Or, rather confessed his sins publicly on nationwide radio to James Dobson, which is apparently the functional equivalent for Republicans.) However, while Gore has been making emotionally effective documentaries, education people about environmental issues, and becoming a master policy wonk, Gingrich has been out making fistloads of cash. It is left as an exercise to the student which one means more in politics.