Hillary and Obama and Sometimes McCain

I don't know about you but I'm fascinated by this year's U.S. Presidential contest. It's not simply that I have to live under the governance of whatever lunkhead people vote into office. The contest is truly a strange melange of fascinating personalities, intense tactical considerations, dynamic speeches and -the blogging humourist's favourite- outright stupidity.

As near as I can tell, it's gone something like this:

Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney took the early lead in their respective parties primaries. Hillary strove hard to allay fears that she was a power-mad, shrewish narcissist with a deep psychological need to outdo her husband. Mitt strove hard to allay fears that he was really Brigham Young after a shave and a Brooks Brothers wardrobe.

Meanwhile, Barack Obama suddenly took the lead in the Democratic primary by repeating the words "hope," "change," and "future" 12,000 times in dulcet tones. John McCain took a sudden lead in the GOP primary by ripping the entire state of Florida from the ground and beating Mitt Romney about the skull with it. Mike Huckabee stood in the background and chuckled, whilst playing his bass guitar.

Hillary responded to her challenge by constantly referring to Obama as "Barack "Eddie Haskell" Obama. Romney responded to his by going into a coma. John Edwards dove for cover behind a hair dryer and Fred Thompson was last seen wandering down I-95 muttering, "Hell, if I know."

Then, Obama's pastor, Jeremiah Wright, was quoted as saying several things that turned Anderson Cooper's hair even whiter than before, if such a thing is possible. Obama responded by pointing out that what his pastor had said was very wrong, but completely justifiable, which made even John McCain laugh, though he was careful not to do it in public. Instead, he laughed into a large box which his staffers took to an undisclosed location and released the sound waves to the great surprise of several moose and at least one Canadian Prime Minister.

Hillary's response to this, after the bouquet of flowers and copy of It Takes a Village to Pastor Wright, was to claim that she and her daughter Chelsea were set upon by Serbian snipers but was miraculously saved when comedian Sinbad threw himself over their bodies and took a bullet for the former First Lady. Sinbad denied all of this, including that his name is Sinbad, as he has changed it to Barackbad, in honour of Obama. Jeremiah Wright responded by saying that he thought that Hillary Clinton should change her name to Barack as well because Hillary was a really, really Caucasian name. Bill Clinton responded to this by saying he loved his wife's name and had anyone noticed that Barack Obama happend to be black.

John McCain then made several speeches in a fruitless attempt* to compete with the Democrats for attention. He then stepped up his efforts by appearing on Meet the Press, Letterman, The Tonight Show, Dancing with the Stars, Deal or No Deal, and America's Funniest Home Videos, where he was launched from a cannon and kicked the groin by Rush Limbaugh, all in the same clip.

The latest is that the Democratic super-delegates, disappointed to find out that their titles don't actually endow them with super-powers, turned to figuring out who they would support at the Convention and what it would cost them. The people of Florida, still angry at being tossed about Mitt Romney's head by McCain, demanded that their primary votes be counted down to the last hanging chad and anything else that was dangling around. The people of Michigan implored that their votes be counted as well, but not so vigourously, still being depressed from the Appalachian State loss.

Just think, there's a whole eight more months of this crap to look forward to.

*In other words, he had no fruit.