Well, here we are not even six months after The Most Important Election Since The Last Mass Extinction Event and, like Christmas commercials during the World Series, the Democratic “stars” have already announced their intentions to make political hay out of the disasters they allowed to happen for the past five years — that is to say, announced their candidacies for the 2008 Presidential Fracas which, as any Democrat will tell you, will be The Most Important Election Since The Earth Cooled To A Temperature Conducive To Life.

So, what’s more to say, gang, except let’s get on with the slagging — uhh…that is, let’s look at some quick, elegant analyses of the “major” candidates (so far) on your Jackass Slate For 2008!

EDWARDS:
Ballsiest of the bunch, for sure, announcing the week after Christmas, and while doing what was obviously a staged photo op around New Orleans, pretending to help clean up a wrecked, wasted neighborhood and help some people get their lives back together, all while announcing for Big White Massuh’s House. Am I the only one here who, on seeing this guy for the first time, could only think that here was the new Beautiful Hair Breck Boy, and that if he were a C&W singer, he’d be getting more ass on the road in a month than most regular guys get in a lifetime, and just where the hell did he come from, anyway?
THE FINAL ANALYSIS: HE’S GOT BETTER HAIR.

HILLARY:
I don’t know which is worse — Hillary Clinton becoming America’s Eva Peron, or Hillary thinking that she’s Eva Peron. Anyone who’s seen the YouTube clip of Hillary meeting with Code Weak…uh, Code Pink back in ’03, or heard her speechifying in the past month, will tell you that her skills at telling people shit they want to hear are still par excellence. Just five minutes of Hillary and you’ll know how the pancake feels when they lay on the Aunt Jemima. Will this be our ’90s Nostalgia — CNN once again being the Clinton News Network, NBC once again being Nothing But Clinton?
THE FINAL ANALYSIS: SHE’LL PANDER TO ANYONE.

KUCINICH:
(Full Disclosure: Your Cartoonist has been a hardcore Deadhead since 1978.)
Y’know, when Dennis Kucinich launched his “insurgent” candidacy in ’04, I first thought “well, hot damn! He sure as hell won’t win, but at least he’ll put the fear of god in those DLC hoods!” This was, of course, before hearing about — and witnessing — his miserable, craven performance at the Democratic Convention, his supporters having their “Kucinich’04” signs ripped from their hands and replaced with Kerry signs by DNC goons without any apparent sign of protest. No bolting the Convention, no boycott of the vote, no nothing, just Dennis Kucinich leading his merry band of phony “progressives” over the cliff with John Kerry (and Code Weak bringing up the rear). And now, as if this lack of effort was actually appreciated, here’s Dennis The Menace, back again, to suck all the life out of the American peace cargo cult — uh, American peace movement.
THE FINAL ANALYSIS: HE’LL WASTE THE LEFT’S TIME.

OBAMA:
(Full Disclosure: Your Cartoonist was drooled on by the Washington Post in 2002.)
Who else here saw Barack Obama’s beaming mug in the paper or on TV right about the time of the ’04 Democratic Convention and thought, “Who the hell is this guy, and why are they drooling over him like he was a goddamn’ rock’n’roll star?” I mean, seriously, the guy was basically a nobody, then suddenly he was all over the goddamn’ place — kinda like a political version of an American Idol winner. No years of living on club gigs and peanut-butter sandwiches, no paying dues on the road as a backup act, just wham! You’re a star! Did anyone else here also find themselves reading the drooling and thinking, darkly, that the Donks were already grooming Obama for ’08, and that he was here not to actually do anything for African America, but to give Geezin’ Old White Liberal America something to feel good about — so they can go back to not really giving a shit about what’s happening to black and brown people in this country and when anybody calls them on it, they can say “hey, gimme a break! I voted for Barack Obama!” The only Black constituency I can think of who’d possibly go for Obama would be what I like to call the “Ebony Magazine Demographic”.
THE FINAL ANALYSIS: HE’LL KEEP SERVING “CAPITAL”.

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Well, fan-damn tastic! The Armani Democrats are in the house! Let’s find out what new, exciting changes we’ll see on these major issues…
I’ll never forget seeing Nancy Pelosi on Meet The Press back in May; after mentioning that the impeachment of President Chimp is “off the table” — despite having a record of impeachable offenses as long as his arm — she then goes on to say that when the Democrats get a majority in Congress in November, “it’s going to be a new day”… a statement almost as cringeworthy as her appearance on the NBC Today Show in November of ’02, after her election as House Minority Leader, where she declares the Democratic leadership “stands shoulder-to-shoulder with President Bush” in the rush to war in Iraq.

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Hillary, Hillary, Hillary! What could I possibly say about Hillary Clinton that hasn’t already been said about the sensation of having red-hot steel needles plunged into your eyeballs? Those bugged-out eyeballs, that phony horse-toothed smile, that hectoring schoolmarmish speaking style, those posh outfits, that insufferable sense of entitlement that oozes out of her every pore and orifice — there’s just nothing about Hillary that doesn’t inspire a good, healthy, deep-down hatred inside of me.

I’m almost at the point of actually hoping that they do nominate Hillary just for the entertainment value of watching the Democratic Party crater good and hard, one last time, for good — I’ve got the beer in the cooler, the Jiffy-Pop on the stove and the lounge chairs set up and ready for the big Fail — so that folks who want real change can sweep aside the wreckage to make room for a real “peoples’ party”.

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Ah, Y2K… a simpler, happier time. Nothing important having to do with computers or networks crashed, failed, collapsed, imploded or fell over. We still didn’t have our flying cars yet, but we were still wired to the teeth on the solidarity high from A16. Of course, we didn’t have a whole lot of time to bitch about not having our flying cars yet, as it was fast approaching time to decide how we were going to organize around the Presidential “Election” circus, and the attendant party conventions. This being DC, we spent a lot of time spotlighting Statehood organizing and the “debates”.

Every Presidential “election” year, the Commission On Presidential Debates, a totally bipartisan outfit, convenes to decide, in an entirely bipartisan fashion, how to prevent anybody other than Republicans and Democrats from appearing in the nationally televised “debates”. This, of course, was also the first year in many that the Democrats were facing any kind of serious challenge from the Left — and by “the Left”, I don’t mean “candy-assed phony ‘Pwogwessives’ who vote Democratic, mail checks to NPR and read Mother Jones while they’re taking a dump”; by that, I mean the goddamned Left, from the outside, in the form of Ralph Nader and the Green Party USA, who actually were close to polling numbers high enough to qualify for Federal matching funds and automatic ballot access in the next “election” year. Needless to say, most of the Democratic Party’s most vigorous campaigning wasn’t against the GOP, but against the Left — basically, against its own base — for daring to decide they had a choice, and that they didn’t need the Democrats’ permission to take action, and to call the Democratic leadership to account for their abandonment of core values, its failure to defend working people and, basically, being such a worthless, no-account, dive-artist outfit while still attempting to put up a shabby, weak, Liberal/Progressive facade. It was the year the Democratic Party finally revealed what it was really all about by doing everything it could to keep off the ballot and out of the “debates” a party whose platform would’ve been raised proudly by the Democratic Party themselves in, say, the early ’70s.

This poster advertised a series of protests held in downtown DC, at the headquarters of the Commission on Presidential Debates, calling out the Democrats for their hypocrisy and cowardice, and calling out the CPD for rigging the rules in favor of rich, well-connected establishment politicians, and for allowing corporate influence in the form of Anheuser-Busch’s sponsorship of the telecasts. This was also the year where you couldn’t turn on your TV set without at least once seeing that goddamn’ “Whazzuuuuuuup!” commercial at least ten times. Still, it was silly enough to hold my attention for more than ten seconds, and my friends and I were already using it as a form of ironic, absurdist greeting, so when I let my mind wander a bit and started riffing on the whole Presidential Debate/Whazzuuuuuup idea, it didn’t take long to start asking myself what influence Anheuser-Busch’s sponsorship will take. Would they be allowed to hang their logo onstage, like those old quiz shows from the ’50s? Would A-B be allowed final say on the questions…and have us reduced to an hour a night for three nights of Gush and Bore standing there going “Whazzuuuuuuuup?” This, while not the most likely, proved to be the more entertaining vision.

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