Forget the Presidential Election

Last night, my wife told me that Carly Fiorina is running for president. And I know who she is, I’ve got some of her records! I started looking for them and my wife says, “Jack, what are you doing over there?! You’ve got my Waylon Jennings records strewn all over the floor!” I said, I’m looking for our Carly Fiorina records, I know we got one at a yard sale a while back. My wife said, “No, Jack, no. You’re thinking Carly Simon. Carly Fiorina isn’t a singer. I think she had a cooking show on the Food Network.” I thought maybe she was right and Fiorina had been on Iron Chef America. But then I did a web search. Fiorina’s maiden name is Sneed and I said, “Aha! She’s undercover from a Dr. Seuss book!” But, worse than that, she worked as a advisor for Senator John McCain’s failed presidential campaign in 2008. She’s been the CEO of a company or two and her business acumen is not so great, people say. What gets into people that think after not being able to successfully run a company, they can run a country? I dunno, she oughta forget about it and cut a record or get a cooking show on the Food Network.

And this Ted Cruz dude, what’s with this guy? This guy was born in Canada; what happened to this “Birther” movement in the Republican Party? I mean, how do we know this guy isn’t a closet Canadian, you know? He might have a secret agenda to replace good ol’ all-American ketchup on hot dogs with Canadian maple syrup. His campaign website has the slogan “Courageous Conservatives: Re-Igniting The Promise Of America”  emblazoned on it. See? He’s already talking about lighting the grill to cook those unAmerican hot dogs! I dunno, I’m not thrilled when Republicans start talking about playing with fire. They already do that enough with their foreign policy. Speaking of which, get a load of this blurb off his website where he’s telling us how he stands for a “Stronger, Safer America”: “Represented more than 3 million veterans before the U.S. Supreme Court in Salazar vs. Buono defending the constitutionality of the Mojave Desert Veterans Memorial.” Yeah, because that makes us safer and stronger just like the Lake Winnepesocki Mustard Museum and the American Ball Park Hot Dog Vendors Memorial.

Even more hilarious is the section on Cruz’s website titled “Our Standards: The Constitution”. Now there, Cruz gloats about having “Led the way on several cases including a U.S. Supreme Court case that preserved the words ‘under God’ in the Pledge of Allegiance.” Yeah, that makes us freer, doesn’t it? Every time we recite the Pledge of Allegiance, an unconstitutional federal law will be automatically repealed, right Ted? No? Shucks, that ain’t right! You know what? His political accomplishments read like the resume of an 18 year old. He should join Carly Fiorina on her cooking show and teach us how to make Canadian-style hot dogs. Sonoran-style hot dogs are popular out here in Arizona, so who knows? Maybe Canadian-style hot dogs will take off.

Let’s talk about Jeb Bush. Now, we can’t talk about the Bush political family without talking about the Clintons. These two families are like the one stray cat you fed one time and the next day, five of them showed up on the porch wanting to be fed. Seriously. This all started with Papa Bush, the original stray cat. Ok, we elected this guy one time—ONE TIME!!!—and now we’ve had Bushes and Clintons on the porch ever since! Someone needs to call animal control because we just can’t have this. The neighbors are starting to complain. I mean, seriously, it’s a public health risk. None of them have had their rabies shots or anything. This just goes to show you, no good or even ambivalent deed ever goes unpunished. We fed Papa Bush, the old tomcat, on the porch and people said, “Hey, do you think that’s a good idea? You’ll have every cat in the neighborhood coming around…” Awww…it’s just Papa Bush! He was old man Reagan’s cat, remember? Then the Clintons showed up on the porch and people said, “See? Now look at these cats that showed up! The tom of this bunch has been after every female cat in the neighbourhood! See what we got started?” Nah, they’ll go away after they eat.

Yeah, that’s what we thought! Then we had Bush Jr. “There! See! What’d I tell ya! This one’s from a litter that old Papa Bush sired! Now we’re feeding the kittens from the first cat we fed! See what we got started? And the Clintons are still coming around begging to be fed, too. Look, the female of them is looking for a handout, running for president and so on.” Yeah, but we didn’t feed her when she came around in 2008, she’ll go away. “But will you look at what’s happened now?! We’ve got the Clinton female coming around begging to be fed AND another kitten from the litter Papa Bush sired and both of them are sitting outside the door meowing to be fed! This is a nightmare! Seriously, this can’t go on. We have GOT to call animal control. None of these cats has had rabies shots! They’re fighting with all the other cats in the neighborhood, getting into the trash cans and making a mess, howling all night, and crapping in peoples’ gardens.  If we don’t stop feeding them, we’ll have more of them coming around! And their litters of kittens!” Yeah, see, that’s the problem with feeding politicians. You feed one and then the next thing you know, you’ve got a whole army of them hanging out in your yard. The neighbors ask, “Are those your cats?! Do you know they shredded my patio chairs with their claws?! And they don’t get along with anyone else’s cats, either!” See the mess we got started?

I don’t understand any of this. I think we’d be better off to do a presidential election like the Iron Chef cooking competition on the Food Network. All the candidates have to appear on the show and have a “secret ingredient” they have to cook. Think about it! “Iron President”! Just to make it interesting, the host of the show could be Sarah Palin and the panel of judges average Americans selected by mailed summons. They could have Vladimir Putin as the “Chairman” just for spice. “This election’s secret ingredient is…maple syrup! Hail to the Chief and allez cuisine!” “Well, it looks like Ted Cruz is going to have an advantage here, Vlad, because he’s from Canada. You betchya! But don’t count out Carly Fiorina yet…what’s she doing? Look! Is that a garlic-maple syrup pesto, she’s making?” “Indeed! And it looks like Cruz is, what’s he doing, yes! He’s making hot dogs, cooking them over the American Promise Re-Igniter! He’s got a maple syrup based ketchup his sous chef is making over there, too!” “But wait, check out Hillary! Can you believe it?! She’s making a Benghazi Upside-Down Cake with maple syrup glaze! Has she got time to really cover up that Benghazi like the recipe calls for?” “I dunno, Vlad, she’s always been good at covering things up. Learned it from her husband, they say…”

Meh, I couldn’t care less about this election. If it was an Iron President TV show, it might be worth watching. At least we’d know the new president could do at least one thing right, even if it was just cooking.