The 2008 Presidential Blowout!
by Jonathan David Morris
jdm@readjdm.com

Special to The Libertarian Enterprise

Ah, the presidential election.

It feels sort of weird to be discussing the 2008 presidential election. After all, it's only March 2007. However, that's what's in the news, and the news is what I write about.

What I like about this particular election is that the main discussion so far seems to revolve around all the candidates being inherently unelectable. This makes sense. To me, anyone who would actually want to be president should probably be disqualified.

On the Democratic side, you have two main contenders who would both be major firsts if they were elected. Barack Obama would be the first cigarette-smoking, non-parking-ticket-paying, former Harvard Law School student president with a name that happens to remind us of at least two hated foreign dictators. In addition to this, he would also be the first black president, even though he is only part black.

Obama's main Democratic rival, meanwhile, is Hillary Rodham Clinton, whose husband Bill was also the first black president, even though he isn't black at all. I guess this would technically make Barack Obama the second first black president, but the first first black president to actually be at least partially black.

Ms. Clinton herself would be the first female president, as well as the first president since Chester A. Arthur to routinely be called the word for a female dog.

Also, Ms. Clinton has a stiff lip and doesn't actually believe in anything. But that's neither here nor there.

Then you have the Republicans.

The leading Republican candidate at the moment is America's mayor himself, Mr. Rudolph Horatio Giuliani. Actually, I don't know if his middle name is Horatio. But if it isn't, it should be.

The main issue when it comes to Giuliani is character. Mr. Giuliani has apparently been married 400 times, and this bothers people. If a man can't respect his sacred bond with his first 399 wives, what does it say about how he will run the country?

Then there's the former governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney, who, amongst other things, has the strange distinction of being named Mitt. If he were to win, Mr. Romney would be the first Mormon elected to the White House. I'm not entirely sure why this bothers people, but I think it's because the Mormons have their own board game.

Finally, there is Senator John McCain, who's been running for president ever since the last time he ran for president, way back in the year 2000. Mr. McCain should've gone into hiding and grown a beard or filmed a movie like Al Gore. Instead, he chose to stay in politics, leaving a seven-year trail of publicly stated opinions behind him. This will make it hard to win the election. Americans don't like candidates once they know where those candidates stand.

Of course, there are other people running for president, but most of them don't deserve their own paragraphs. Democrat Al Gore and Republican Newt Gingrich are both rumored to be throwing their proverbial hats in the proverbial ring. Democrat John Edwards is also running. You may remember him from 2004. That was the year all the Democrats had to do was nominate someone better than George Bush. Somehow, they couldn't do it.

I wouldn't mind seeing Republican Ron Paul elected president, but he would never win, because he actually sort of respects the Constitution.

For my money, with all this talk of possible presidential firsts, I'll tell you the one kind of person I could never vote for: a man who wears a toupee. It's nothing personal against toupee wearers. I understand they're human beings just like me. It's just that. . . well, how could I know I could trust them?

In the back of my mind, I would never be sure.

Jonathan David Morris writes from Philadelphia. He can be reached at jdm@readjdm.com.

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