Cohen: It’s time to get ready for the presidential circus
Still more than a year out, the race for the White House is already entertaining.
By Ben Cohen
Tuesday, September 11th, 2007
The next presidential election is not for a little more than a year. This is common knowledge. It will become a bit less common once the election is a little more than a month away, and most people have not registered to vote or even figured out which of the candidates they prefer. But why delve into that kind of cynicism just yet? The 2008 election promises to be either the best race in our country’s history, or, at the very least, the most entertaining. Even now, with so much time before the polls open, the sideshow that is the world of presidential politics has already opened and started taking tickets. Before you go find out which scalper has the best seats for under 50 bucks, let us take a look at the acts that have already been announced. This week, we will focus on the Republican Party.
The Grand Old Party is in an interesting position. George W. Bush, the man who proved that even presidents who can keep it in their pants can be prime fodder for Jay Leno, is unable to run again, what with those pesky term limits and all. That means the party must, for the first time in eight years, come up with somebody new, and the contenders who have emerged so far have been a fun little bunch.
The prime contender from the GOP so far appears to be Rudy Guiliani, the former mayor of New York City. This was the last public office he held, and it was almost six years ago. A mayor probably seems like a poor choice to fill a position which is concerned with an entire nation, but it was New York City, after all. He maintained their tenuous peace with New Jersey, so he already has foreign relations going for him. Of course, there is the issue of him being knighted by the Queen of England following his handling of the aftermath of Sept. 11. Do we really want a British knight as our president? Is that even allowed?
Aside from Sir Rudy, Knight of Milking Tragedies for All They Are Worth and Then Some, the GOP has brought forth a few others. There is Mitt Romney, a fairly clean-smelling former governor of Massachusetts, who has never appointed anybody questionable to his campaign team. Ever. Do you hear me? Never! Another hopeful is Kansas Senator Sam Brownback, whose campaign has been bogged down by all the time spent wondering why the other members of the Republican Party keep patting him on the head and saying, “Aww, you’re so adorable, of course you can play Elections with us.” Seemingly for fun, the GOP has also put forth Fred Thompson, who quit the Senate earlier this decade to act on “Law and Order,” and Ron Paul, who last ran for President in 1988 as a member of the Libertarian Party. While considered an outsider, Paul does have the advantage of having cornered the pivotal college-students-who-spend-too-much-time-on-Facebook bloc.
Lastly, there is John McCain. Once the maverick of the Republican Party, the one most willing to step across party lines to accomplish his goals, and the one who criticized President Bush before it was cool, McCain has been reduced to the sad role of Elder Statesman. The longtime Senator from Arizona was once a perennial contender, scrappy and talented, like the Phoenix Suns, but has lately become a sad picture of perpetually unfulfilled potential, more like the Arizona Cardinals.
There are a few others vying for the chance to run for President with an elephant as their mascot, but none are interesting enough to be made fun of in this small space. Stay tuned, as I will be running down the prominent Democrats in two weeks.
Cohen is a Topeka junior in journalism and English.
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