This is not a casual choice, or a choice made for comedic value. Studying our present presidential situation does not reveal an improvement of our available selection of presidential candidates.
This doesn’t trouble our politically polarized friends who have picked their side of the fence in advance, but instead troubles those of us who straddle it. It’s a picket fence, and it’s uncomfortable.
When looking at a photo array of current candidates we appear constipated as we attempt to determine the manner of our displeasure. The dilemma lies in… well… lies. We don’t trust any of the current candidates to be truthful about themselves. We grit our teeth, gird our loins and choose. It would be easier if the candidates were more diverse. Yes one is African-American and one is a woman, but is there anything significantly different about them?
On Oct. 16, comedic pundit Stephen Colbert announced on his Comedy Central faux-news show “The Colbert Report” that he would run in the South Carolina presidential primaries as a Democrat and a Republican.
Is it a hoax? Is he serious? I don’t know. Let’s assume he is and that it’s not an elaborate joke. Would it really be so bad? Why couldn’t he run for president? And what do other candidates and former/current presidents have that he doesn’t?
It’s true he has no political experience, but the current president had little to no political experience before becoming governor of Texas. The Texas governorship is considered to be one of the weakest in the union.
As the youngest of eleven children, he’s pro family, but he also needs lots of attention. The press could jimmy and pry at his life all they wanted. He’d ask them to, over and over again, desperate for a little more camera time.
Religion? In interviews, Colbert has described his parents as devout people who also strongly valued intellectualism and taught their children that it was possible to question the Church and still be Catholic. While it is difficult for a non-protestant to become president, Mitt Romney is still campaigning the republican primaries as a Mormon.
If you watch The Daily Show” or the “Colbert Report” you get the sense that, while it is satire, they are still keeping up with current politics at a staggering level. If Colbert were to maintain his current ability to comment on all subjects without hesitation, he could do what no other candidate is willing to do: Speak his mind. As a humorist he isn’t bound by the assumed moral constrains of only giving stump speeches. Colbert is a witty intellectual and an accomplished improvisational comedian. So when he says something funny, we’ll laugh, unlike the current seat holder who nervously chuckles at his own words as if they weren’t depressing and frightening.
Most candidates are politicians. They have risen through the political ranks to get where they are today. Is that what we really want in a president? Do we want someone well versed in serving special interests, bending their moral compass and abandoning principles to get ahead?
Would it be so ridiculous for a non-traditional candidate to freshen the thinning blood of Washington? The worst-case scenario is we would have a government capable of ridiculing itself.