Yeah, good one, America. Every four years, like clockwork, you catch the fast train to Presidential Junction
with a delightfully-easy-to-ignore ballot nestled between those plump, stucco sausages called fingers and in front of an audience of about, oh, six billion people, you manage to slip in your own drool, swallowing a year’s worth of sloppy swiftboat slander and elect the ugliest girl at the Political Prostitute Prom to become the most powerful person on earth. That’s nothing to say for the loser, who’s not only as monstrous as the tiara-toting totem waving like a robot on Inauguration Day, but failed in their bid to convince the nation responsible for Jimmy Dean Chocolate Chip Pancakes & Sausage on a Stick to elect them President. No wonder Bowie is afraid of you.
After eight years of perhaps the funniest presidency ever witnessed – and yes, I speak of the myriad of wacky and hilarious JPEGS that your dipshit uncle from Taranaki forwarded to your parents’ Xtra e-mail depicting the incumbent President alongside every single primate known to man – the spotlight is soon to dim on George W ‘Hail_to_the_Chimp_LOL.JPG’ Bush and fall upon a fresh new face that will almost certainly become the inspiration for a series of shitty bumper stickers, produced by some cash-strapped college sophomore from New Hampshire who posts electoral college predictions on his dorm door and wonders why his penis hasn’t so much as detected the whiff of a woman’s vagina ever.
On 4 November 2008, the American voting public will descend upon voting booths across the land of the free and the home of the brave, to choose whether they want a misogynistic, fundamentalist Muslim terrorist who built his campaign around the violent epithets of ‘hope’ and ‘change’, or the wily former POW who can’t lift his arms and is, like, 100 fucking years old, to lead them into a brave new world and stumble every damn step of the way.
We here in New Zealand are particularly lucky that we don’t have to agonise over which candidate’s elaborate election courtship iced our political nipples sweetly enough to entice a tick on election day. No, from the comfort of our living rooms and computer desks we’ll simply watch in awe as America, quite simply, blows it again. With the political game fast finding its feet on the hostile battleground of the internet, the casual Kiwi net junkie may indulge their curiosity and partake in the mind-numbing snorefest that constitutes intelligent political discourse in America. But for those of you who haven’t Googled Barack Obama or John McCain (or have been wallowing away reading the sports column in Salient until you forgot how to feel anything, let alone behave like a person who belongs anywhere outside of a sewer), let me guide you through the pros and cons of electing either of these two gentlemen and their strangely attractive running mates (oh, you better believe I’m biding my time for Joe Biden) while ultimately convincing you that we are – in essence – so completely fucking screwed it’s not even funny.
Introducing: Barack Obamarama
Biography:
Barack Hussein Obama – yes, that’s right; his middle name is in fact the surname of the guy who married Satan on South Park, and his surname does sound agonisingly similar to “Osama,” the clinical terrorist mastermind who’s currently treating himself to a FABULOUS one-bedroom cave bed-set on the Afghanistan/ Pakistan border – is the junior senator from Illinois and the Democratic Party’s nominee for President of the United States.
Let’s get this out of the way before we go on: he’s black, all right? He’s pretty goddamn black. Jesus fucking Christ is this guy black. My God in heaven, the stars above, and every little girl’s wish for a pony on the tail of a shooting star is this guy black, I mean seriously.
The son of a Kenyan man and a whitey white woman from Kansas (who isn’t black, but he is – by the way, Barack Obama is black), Obama graduated magna cum laude from Harvard in 1991, was the first African American president of the Harvard Law Review, taught constitutional law in Chicago for 12 years and spent seven years as a state legislator in the Illinois Senate, before being elected to Big Boy’s Senate in 2004. His meteoric rise up the rickety Democratic ladder was partly on the back of an inspirational keynote address he delivered at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, in which he implored the dozens of legitimately excited John Kerry supporters that there weren’t red states or blue states, only United States
– a fact that startled both partisan hacks and the colourblind alike.
Declaring his candidacy for the Democratic nomination in February 2007, Obama was embroiled in a bitter, twisted, violent primary contest with former First Lady and full-time woman scorned Hillary Clinton. After securing the requisite delegates needed to claim the nomination, Obama banished Clinton to the Phantom Zone with the other villains from Superman II and, understandably, hasn’t spoken of her since.
When his nomination was made official at this year’s Democratic National Convention, a crowd of over 75,000 people packed Mile High Stadium in Denver, Colorado, to see Obama’s acceptance speech – although given the relative size of the stadium and the fact that its geography finds it 1609m above sea level, those unfortunate enough to pack the upper tiers at Mile High were lulled into thinking they were being lectured by a strangely eloquent Will Smith. “HEY! WHERE’S FRED, ASSHOLE? WELCOME TO EARTH, GET IT? UNCLE PHIL SURE WAS FUCKIN’ FAT!” one super delegate was rumoured to have bellowed in the warm thin air.
Issues:
Obama, like the party man he is, likes universal health care and wants it before the end of his first term, which means Joe Schmo from the Bronx won’t hafta fork out three-hundred fuggin’ dollars to get a goddamn bandage when Jimmy the Loon sprays his fuggin coooffee all over him, kapeesh? He’s not a fan of the Iraq war, however, despite what Expedia keeps sending to his junk mail folder, and wants all American troops out of the Middle East’s most happenin’ little minefield by mid-2010. He also doesn’t care for nuclear proliferation, thinks transparency between lobbyists and government is so fucking hot, and supports a guest-working program for non-American citizens, allowing douchebags like the guy sitting in front of you in LAWS 122 to finally realise their destiny of asking a 230kg man from Kansas City whether he wants his meal supersized.
Pros:
He’s so dreeeamy. His silver tongue wraps itself around the ridges of your heart and soul and positively fellates it until pure hope shoots from it like a Yellowstone geyser. He can also land a three-pointer from fucking anywhere on the court; he once rescued Timmy and Sally from the well when Lassie couldn’t make it to Pa on time; and he may or may not have been crucified for the sins of mankind sometime in the past two thousand years, but he ain’t telling nobody.
Cons:
He’s a secret Muslim terrorist sent back through time to destroy the Great Satan, AKA the Jewnited States of AmeriKKKa, from deep inside its infidel bowels. He’s also incredibly, incredibly sexist for not offering Hillary Clinton the use of his back as a coffee table when he assumed an unassailable lead during the Democratic Party primaries. As well as that, he’s also an ivory tower elitist who compounded this fact by offering his snooty services as a community worker in downtown Chicago. Oh, and he may or may not have insinuated that Sarah “I’m Tina Fey And I Bet You’ll Beat Off To Me Once I’m VP” Palin was a pig in lipstick, which is a perfectly admissible comment given that a number of men wouldn’t mind rolling around in the mud with the Alaskan Governor – am I right, boys?! Am I right?!
One Final Fact:
He once banged Jennifer Aniston when it meant something.
Introducing: John “Ah McCain, You’ve Done it Again” McCain… Who May Do it… Again… Or Something.
Biography:
John Sidney McCain III was born in 1936 an – wait a goddamn minute. Stop everything. Are you seriously trying to tell me that this guy was born before the Second World War, or before the building of the Golden Gate Bridge, or before the invention of fibreglass? Was this guy knocking about with Moses when he parted the Red Sea too? 1936 – mother of fucking GOD is that old.
Anyway, Old Man River was born in 1936, and is the senior senator from Arizona and is the Republican Party’s nominee for President of the United States.
Graduating from the US Naval Academy in 1958, John McCain served his country as a naval aviator during the Vietnam War, flying the oh-so-reliable A-4E Skyhawk over “Charlie” while making “Nrrrrrrmmmm! POWPOWPOWPOWPOW! Nrrrrrrrrrmmmm!” sound effects through his microphone, much to the disdain of everybody who was linked up with him.
Unfortunately for the future political maverick, he was shot down over Hanoi in North Vietnam in 1967, breaking both his arms and a leg in the crash. He was hauled ashore by the North Vietnamese who (among other wacky things) crushed his shoulder with a rifle butt, bayoneted him, and ruthlessly interrogated his beaten ass before allowing him any sort of medical care. Whether or not they forced him to listen to ‘MacArthur Park’ on repeat as well has never been completely proven.
McCain was released after five years, and returned home a hero. He served the navy in an administration capacity before being elected to the House of Representatives in 1982, and the Senate in 1987.
Touted as something of a maverick for his outspoken antics and his flagrant inability to follow the Republican Party line – even during party picnics when he insisted upon throwing the party’s Frisbee downwards instead of up – McCain gained a number of supporters across the political spectrum.
He ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2000, but fell foul of the deviant genius of Karl “Want to see the sound-proof safe where my wife and kids live?” Rove, who orchestrated a brutal smear campaign which insisted, among other things, that McCain had fathered an illegitimate black baby. This, despite how chic black babies were in the early 2000’s (we’re looking at you, Angelina Jolie), proved to be false, but it was too late, as some guy named George ended up securing the nomination and McCain was forced to return to Castle Greyskull to contemplate his failings.
He returned earlier this year, having somehow resurrected his money-losing circus of a campaign, to beat off the likes of Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee (both real human beings, despite what their cartoonishly fake names suggest). The wily senator has clawed back the lead from his Democratic rival in the polls and holds a very real chance of becoming the oldest first-term President in history. So incredibly fucking old…
Issues:
An ardent supporter of the Iraq war, McCain has been a strong advocate for the continued advancement of the American military’s current ‘surge’ policy, which essentially means that U.S. troops under his trust as Commander in Chief can expect to be home by about the time Jesus returns during the rapture. Formerly against tax cuts, he now favours them and plans on reducing government spending to afford them. He LOVES free trade, thinking the North American Free Trade Agreement is something likened to ‘the shiz,’ which he “believes is what the ‘kids’ are saying ‘now’, right?” He sorta favours equal pay between the sexes – although he’s never voted for it – and thinks the minimum wage is a pretty bloody stupid idea. So, to that douche in LAWS 122, you might consider the possibility that your ‘bitching’ American OE could well be spent on the street offering handjobs for sandwiches.
Pros:
John McCain is a tough-talkin’ nochance- in-hell guns blazing maverick who’ll slice your terrorist heart to pieces with his fucking mind. He’ll never let you forget, and he’s physically incapable of forgiving – he had the part of his brain that governs feelings removed before entering politics. He’s such a maverick that one time, he walked into the ladies’ room at Walmart, unzipped and started pissing – just pissing everywhere. Why? Fuck off, mavericks don’t have to answer to anybody.
Being a POW is also a huge tick in his column, despite his initial reluctance to put it on his CV (as was the advice of Sharon from “Jobz-R-Us Recruitment”). Americans love war heroes and they love stories of tenacity. Look at Rocky, look at Jack Bauer from 24, look at Miley Cyrus – but not for too long, because she’s only 15, man – loved and adored for their tenacity and subtle teen sluttiness. “Old Man River, POW” is a tough campaign slogan to defeat.
Cons:
He’s, like, a hundred years old. I cannot stress that enough. He’s so fucking old.
There’s also the curious fact that despite his insistence upon being a maverick, his voting record in the senate deviated from George W Bush’s particularly colourful point of view less than 10 per cent of the time. Why? Fuck off, mavericks don’t have to answer to anybody.
The gruelling physical rehabilitation he endured upon returning to the US from Vietnam left McCain without the ability to raise his arms – a fact that may be exploited by deviant members of his staff who may hilariously put the remote control that launches America’s nuclear arsenal on the top shelf next to his car keys and wallet “just so McCainy makes that grizzle face we all know and love.”
McCain’s also renowned for having something of a temper, which is completely unheard of in people over the age of 60 and could very well influence his judgement in ways we cannot even begin to imagine. Say, for example, he’s having bacon and quail eggs with Vladimir Putin (who not only killed and skinned the pig, but also pulled the eggs out of the quail with his bare hands no more than two hours before lunch), and Vlad gets wind of ol’ John boy’s hot head. He asks, “I hear that in America, you are the giant fairy queen, no?” causing President McCain to overflow like a boiling pasta pot and devote the next three hours to making a costume in the likeness of Conan the Barbarian JUST TO PROVE THAT DAMN RUSKIE WRONG. It could happen, believe me, it could happen.
One Final Fact:
Having done so once before during the time of the dinosaurs, John McCain can in fact survive a meteorite collision with the earth. How? Fuck off, mavericks don’t have to answer to anybody.
Conclusion:
Whether America decides to make history by electing the first black (black, black, black) president, or gives gramps a courtesy term in the White House before MILF Palin jiggles her sweet, sweet way into the Oval Office, one thing remains painfully obvious: there will never, ever, ever be an election campaign waged in our country that will ever be as interesting as this one.
Helen and John dishing over some snorefest tax policy? Or Obama and McCain pointing nuclear-tipped bunker busters at each other’s campaigns and saying “You first, motherfucker.” Oh, to be American. Oh, to be so incredibly burnt.