Thursday, October 28, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

The good, the bad and the Cheney

Your complete Election Day preview

By Roger Naylor

The 2000 presidential election was decided--as all elections should be--by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia leaning across the breakfast table and shoving half a grapefruit in the face of Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor while screaming that she would vote with the boys or end up gutted in a ditch with her intestines wrapped around her throat and her heart mounted on a stick.

Unlike that one, the 2004 campaign has been a tad testy.

Since voters--at least the lucky few whose registrations weren't trashed by Voters Outreach of America--may actually have a hand in the process this time around, the Mercury seeks to inform. Or at least warn. What follows is a comprehensive guide to the candidates, the issues and what's at stake for the nation.

Candidate bios: Who are these bozos?

John F. Kerry began his run for the White House at an early age. While attending elitist liberal Yale University, he signed up for duty in Vietnam. Like so many men of his generation, he planned to achieve his dreams by climbing a blood-slicked ladder of gook corpses.

After being declared a war hero by Jane Fonda, Kerry returned Stateside and landed the role of Lurch on the popular sitcom "The Addams Family." He then ran for Congress, hoping to meet a really, really rich broad. He married Teresa Heinz and today they preside over a Brady Bunch-like mixed brood of offspring.

George W. Bush followed a more traditional route. He forged his character on the practice field of the Phillips Academy, surviving torturous choreography routines to become a male cheerleader. Those life lessons of spirit, commitment and dee-fense! have served him well. Bush attended college at Yale, the school favored by all regular joes, where he spent four years painting frat house walls with vomit.

The presidential tadpole achieved a remarkable accomplishment when he was granted an honorable discharge from the Texas Air National Guard, even before he enlisted. When he threatened to turn pro on the cheerleading circuit, his father, George H. W. Bush, agreed to set his namesake up in whatever business he wanted. The young Bush chose governor of Texas. He married Laura Stepford Welch. The couple has twin daughters, Jenna and the other one.

Ralph Nader is a freakishly desperate putz.

The conventions: Unscripted and full of surprises

Political conventions are freewheeling festivals of spontaneity. Anything can happen--from speeches to balloon drops--and usually does. The Democratic faithful were shocked to learn that John Kerry had served in Vietnam. And that his daughters are hot. Not slutty-twin hot, but definitely doable.

Living up to their reputation as the party of the Big Tent, Republicans welcomed all races and creeds to participate in their convention, requiring only that they march in frenzied lockstep and froth at the mouth. The high point of the GOP gala came when Democrat Sen. Zell Miller took the stage and ate a puppy. Also, George W. Bush is resolutely resolute about staying the course in a resolute manner. Holla!

Fun fact: Vietnam veteran Max Cleland claims to support John Kerry, but when Kerry received a standing ovation at the Democratic convention, Cleland refused to get out of his chair.

The attack ads: Bite-sized hot pockets of sleaze

Nothing is more important to a campaign than ads that go boom. No need to get all up in the issues, when various groups boil the details down to catchy mantras. The most effective of these were the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth spots.

Unlike the fog of weekends that obscured huge chunks of the president's National Guard service, war casts a peeling clarity over each mission. On the day Kerry earned his medals, every grunt in country was watching his actions on the Mekong Delta. They returned an overwhelming consensus: Kerry couldn't roll a tight joint.

Perhaps most damning of all was the infamous Licorice commercial. The hamster Kerry "rescued" testified that the event was overblown. "I was never in any real danger at all," squeaked Licorice. "The truth is, I can swim like a trout. John Kerry was only thinking about John Kerry on that day."

The debates: Need some wood?

The debates dramatically served their purpose. They gave voters an opportunity to measure the candidates side by side, thinking on their feet and defining themselves and each other.

Most importantly, the debates also spawned a really cool conspiracy theory. The Bulge. And no, not the monster chubby that Dick Cheney sported during his face-off with John Edwards. After spending most of three years stashed away in an undisclosed bunker, Cheney developing an "Irish toothache" while seated next to the dreamy Southern senator hardly qualifies as news.

The bulge in question was the mysterious lump between George Bush's resolute shoulder blades during the first debate in Miami. Rumors of what this bulge might be flooded almost all the Internets.

Many speculated that the president wore a wireless receiver and was being fed answers. Which is blatantly absurd. God does not need to use a receiver to communicate with His Ordained Messenger and Official 9/11 Avenger.

Yet not all went swimmingly for the incumbent. While Kerry presented a calm demeanor and laid out a forceful case for change, the normally silver-tongued Bush seemed off his game. But then Kerry made a decisive error. Reciting a list of coalition members contributing to the war in Iraq, Kerry stumbled. Immediately, the president pounced.

"What about Poland? You forgot Poland! How could you forget Poland, you lanky Polack-snubbing sonofabitch? They're the ones who perfected submarines with screen doors. He totally forgot Poland, Jim. Can I go home now?"

It was a withering attack that clearly demonstrated the president's command of the issues.

Kerry made a similar gaffe in the second debate. During a discussion of small businesses, Kerry claimed the president owned a timber company that paid $84 for the year. But the Republican spin machine was quick to shoot this allegation down.

"This talk of an $84 profit is nonsense," said an RNC spokesperson. "Anyone who ever did business with the president knows that none of his companies made money. He left behind smoking craters of financial ruin. He couldn't find oil if he drilled into a can of Quaker State. As a baseball GM, he traded Sammy Sosa, for crissake!"

During the third debate, President Bush was on the ropes when he admitted he didn't regularly meet with the NAACP because he was afraid of being attacked by Blacula. But when asked to name just one mistake he made while in office, Bush delivered the crushing zinger, "If John Kerry was a woman, he'd expect a Purple Heart every time he gets his period. Also, he's a liberal."

Advantage: Bush.

Fun fact: Contrary to what Dick Cheney said to John Edwards during their debate, the two men had met before. They sat next to each other at a prayer breakfast where the vice president suggested Edwards go fuck himself, amen.

The issues: Blah blah blah

While Iraq and the economy dominate the headlines, in a close election small issues could determine the outcome.

Abu Ghraib scandal. When good-natured hazing rituals at the Iraqi prison were taken out of context, it sparked outrage across the Muslim world. President Bush defused the situation by putting the man in charge, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, up for promotion. The president also ordered the decal of a smirking Calvin urinating on the Koran to be scraped off the window of Air Force One. Happy Ramadan to all.

Flu shot shortage. The administration wasted no time confronting the shortage of flu vaccine. It directed all available vaccines to those most in need: registered Republicans throughout the swing states, lesbian Mary Cheney and actor Ron Silver. Those unable to receive a shot were advised to stay home until flu season passes, sometime in mid-November.

Hurricane damage. The most devastating hurricane season in history indicates God wanted to wipe Florida off the face of the earth before the 2004 election. No one seems to know why.

Fun fact: In mid-October, PFC Lyndie England gave birth to a baby boy. Before leaving the hospital, she was photographed with cigarette clenched in teeth, mocking his tiny genitalia.

Predictions: What the pundits are yapping about

"The election will be decided by which party can ratchet up turnout in the swing states."

--Jeff Greenfield

"So I come up behind you in the shower with the loofah mitt. Pressing against your thigh you feel the hardness of my...hey, do you own a vibrator? You should get a vibrator and name it."

--Bill O'Reilly

"I don't name sources and I don't name sex toys. Except for a strand of anal beads that I call the Gilmore Girls."

--Bob Novak

Fun fact: Ann Coulter has a penis.

Undecided voters: Stuttering retards or sad attention whores?

Hundreds of millions of dollars spent. Thousands of miles traveled, hands shaken, backs slapped, babies kissed. Yet after bruising political campaigns, some voters still can't lock down a decision. It is a crucially important choice, one not to be taken lightly. As the bumper stickers warn, "Don't Change Horsemen in the Middle of an Apocalypse."

How can anyone agree to hand over the reins of power to the challenger, a man so irresolute he is actually constrained by reality? John Kerry admits he depends on oxygen to survive. Like the French and Germans, he meekly abides by the laws of gravity. Is that really the best that this country can do, to live under French law?

Leaders need more than their resolvedness. They also have to be able to peer beyond the actual and see the imagined, the wished for and the fantasized about. Then they must steer toward them, no matter what the cost. It's a little thing called optimism, and it goes down great with Kool-Aid.

As administration spokesmodel Dick Cheney stated so eloquently after the Duelfer Report was published, detailing the utter failure of American intelligence in Iraq, "Fuck facts. We got faith."

Have faith. Go vote on Nov. 2. Maybe this time it will count.