"Darth" Nader Returns

Okay, people—it’s time to get biz-ay! My presidential campaign is not exactly going like gangbusters. Despite my pleas for help from long-neglected demographics such as gays, crack whores, and Gary Busey, the campaign cash and endorsements are not exactly pouring in. I need your help, my foot soldiers! I need you to believe in me the way I believe in you.

In this history-making election, you have the opportunity to elect the first African-American president, the first woman president, the world's oldest lobbyist-humping president, or the first righteously angry bald president. I think the choice is clear.

Unlike the other candidates, I offer an original vision to inspire my fellow Americans. I offer change and experience, actions and words, empty promises and vague specifics, and vouchers for free six-packs of Coors, with bonus chips and salsa. You see, I have a dream. Twenty-two score and eight years ago, our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation: conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. We should ask not what our country can do for us; we should ask what we can do for our country. The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. I can press when there needs to be pressed; I can hold hands when there needs to be—hold hands. (OKay, I stole that last "sentence" directly from President Bush.) What the world needs now is love, sweet love.

Can even Obama match my soaring rhetoric?

Yesterday things became more complicated when my arch nemesis Ralph Nader announced he’s making his umpteenth bid to be president. Ralph and I have been bitter enemies since I was six years old. As a young genius/prodigy in physics and electronics, I was opposed to Ralph’s proposal to make installing car safety belts mandatory. As an alternative I invented a force field device that would activate instantly in the event of a car crash and protect all occupants from harm. But I foolishly traded my advanced blueprint for the device to Ralph for a bag of Tootsie Pops and a Nehi soda (I said I was a genius, not mature), and watched in horror as Ralph cackled insanely and burned the blueprint before my very eyes. Like any little braniac, I ran crying to my mommy. The next day I suffered a severe brain injury while riding in my dad’s car, which veered out of control and struck another car, an 18-wheeler, a tree, and a squirrel. My intelligence was thus reduced to that of an ordinary child, ending any hope I had of redesigning my force field device. Ironically, my dad drove a Chevy Corvair. Touché, Ralph.

So Ralph had his way. He is such an asshole. And now he wants to have his way with America again. So either bend over and get ready for another screwing, America, or get on board the Angry Bald Man Freedom Express!

Ralph said it’s time for a “Jeffersonian revolution.” I’m not sure what this means, unless Ralph wants to return to wearing powdered wigs and keeping slaves. Ralph promises to take on corporations and special interest groups. Ralph, have you ever heard of John Edwards? He ran on a similar populist, anti-corporate agenda, and is much better-looking than you, has charisma and a great smile, and yet his presidential hopes crumbled like Marie Osmond on "Dancing WIth The Stars." No offense Ralph, but how does someone who appears to be inches away from the boneyard expect to do any better? Wouldn’t your remaining days be better spent stopping China from putting lead in our children’s toys and squid intestines in our fortune cookies?

What America needs is not some desiccated bureaucrat from days of old, not some pantsuit-wearing political opportunist who’s in the pocket of the pharmaceutical industry, not some sincere but inexperienced man who has worn the consonants off the word “change,” and not some ornery old veteran who is happy to commit us to Iraq for a hundred years because he’ll be dead in ten. What America needs is a man who can channel his anger into constructive action for this country… a man who can turn the economy around, bring our troops home from Iraq, make sure that the uninsured get the health care they need, and make sure that illegal immigrants are not thrown away like so much trash. Unfortunately the Prime Minister of Canada already has a job, so you’ll have to settle for me.

So I ask you one last time, my friends… make me your president. I’ve always wanted to sit in an oval-shaped room and have the power to destroy the world. You won’t be sorry. I’m relatively certain of that.

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