Barack Obama: A good compromise, a good piece of legislation, is like a good sentence; or a good piece of music. Everybody can recognize it. They say, ‘Huh. It works. It makes sense.’

Hillary Clinton: We must stop thinking of the individual and start thinking about what is best for society.

Mike Huckabee: It’s when ordinary people rise above the expectations and seize the opportunity that milestones truly are reached.

John McCain: The core political values of our free society are so deeply embedded in our collective consciousness that only a few malcontents, lunatics generally, ever dare to threaten them.

So, anybody want to take a stab at how much actual philosophical (let alone intellectual) content was to be found within the above quotes? Yeah, not much more than the tiny spherule that appears AFTER you use the shaving cream dispenser. Seriously, you would have thought that they could have fixed that by now…but I digress. Really, why are we even talking about anything at this point in the course of American politics? What point is there? When you see the guy with the damn Elephant on him, you pretty much know that he believes magic tablets full of stupid rules, but the Boogeyman wants you to keep your money. Donkey people want you to join a live-action version of that Orwellian-inspired Dunkin’ Donuts commercial, where we all sing together in unison about how we’re “slightly more efficient that we used to be” and “doing things is what we like to do.” Why only slightly more efficient? I hate that fucking commercial…So, in any case, the point is that these candidates aren’t thinking like marketing bastards. You need to stand out, motherfuckers. They need to abstract and amplify what people are really voting for when they vote for that particular candidate. Either that, or just juice up the damn thing so that you don’t bore the fuck out of me. A few suggestions to consider, if you would:

• Barack Obama
  All right, listen…people aren’t voting for you because you’re brilliant or novel. You see, it’s a fantasy story for the people who are voting for you. Since the presidents of the past have all been white, your election to presidency will enter a new page in history. Your “blackness” will turn a new page and bring us into a new era all by itself. Seriously, they believe this. They wouldn’t be surprised if on the day of you being sworn into office, a portal opens to reveal a hidden new world of magical strippers and peach schnapps rivers, and aliens walk out of it to hand out new diplomas to all your supporters, proclaiming each one to be the smartest person ever. So, capture this spirit… start wearing Vulcan ears. You already look a little like a character from Babylon 5, so go with it. Promise that you’ll bring the Warp Drive and hot green alien chicks to Earth if the people vote for you. The best thing about Vulcan ears is that you can speak at a Star Trek convention and then appear as an elf at a Tolkien fantasy camp on the same day. To recapitulate (and in the memory of Stanley Kubrick), just remember…you ARE a Snowflake.

• Rudy Guiliani
  Listen, you lost. Worst of all, you’re probably wondering how you lost, with your celebrity status and all. As a former Southern boy, I can tell you…you’re still too much of a Yankee. The good ol’ boys (a.k.a., redneck dipshits) aren’t going to vote for you ’cause you got all that fancy talk. You need to come down to their level…See, the problem isn’t that you had relations with a cousin. It’s that you didn’t fuck more of your cousins. Shit, if you would have had some genetically mutated freaks for descendants, they might have looked at you with an approving Cheerwine-covered jowl-jiggle. Better luck next time, carpetbagger.

• Hillary Clinton
  Just like with Barack Obama, people believe that your election will turn a new page in history…but in this case, it’s your crusty Y, not being black, that holds the power…and not necessarily a new page for the future. Instead, people are hoping that your election will bring back the legacy of your husband, who is somehow now responsible for the work of technological entrepreneurs and a foreign policy of bought peace that only resembled success. So, give them what they want: a time machine. That’s right, if they elect you to office, Christoper Lloyd (who will work for hamburgers at this point) will be inspired to create a new time machine out of a Prius (since time travel should not affect the environment). People can’t distinguish between movies and reality; like The Blair Witch Project, this will work. Powered by the semen of Bill Clinton, we will all be brought back to those glory days by pushing that bitch to 80 MPH, straight into your blessed temporal rip in space/time (a.k.a, your “cooch”). But remember, in order to win the family-oriented vote, you better milk that baby batter yourself.

• Mitt Romney
  All right, you’re crazy. Yes, yes, you are a conservative… but you’re a Mormon. It’s impossible for anybody to take you seriously. So, don’t fight it…embrace it like it’s an avalanche of magic underpants. First, pick your running mate: Tom Cruise. Together, proclaim that in a collective dream, Frank Herbert told you that the book “Dune” is real, and that Richard Branson is building a spaceship which will get us the magical spice from the desert-drenched planet. It’s a long shot…but so is your chance to be President. Next time, pick a religion where the founder wasn’t arrested for making an ass out of himself in Bainbridge, New York.

• Dennis Kucinich
  Go watch some more X-Files in the dark alone. You make Romney look like Winston Churchill.

• Mike Huckabee
  I’ve got to hand it to you, you’re good. I mean, with your Larry-the-Cable-Guy-”esque” charm, nobody even gives a second thought to how you’d like to put the Christ back in “By Christ, I will shove this Bible up your urethra.” Though, you would gain even more momentum by being in a movie with LCG! Maybe something like “Ass Wednesday”, with the pair of you as undercover cops in the guise of priests! By keeping the quality of humor down and the subliminal message of Christ on the down-low, trailer trash everywhere will respond to your hilarious message of the sylvan-attached one. You’ve got the gimmick; just ride that baby into The Rapture.

• John Edwards
  Like Giuliani, you just couldn’t make the cut. For some reason, people just couldn’t buy the idea that a wanna-be John Grisham character would make a good President…but there’s always next time. In that case, think about enhancing your image of a polished shark. Just start to sue everybody. If you don’t win a caucus, sue the state that hosted the event. If you don’t win at the next bingo event, sue the local church that held it. Make people shit their pants when you flash that smile…trust me, it already has that effect on me.

• John McCain
  As the only Republican I’ve heard of recent years to fondly quote Chairman Mao and be involved with goals that reside on both the left and right, you serve as the mystery man clad in adult diapers of red, white, and brown. Seriously, though…man, you’re old. And being a little older, you have to take care of your body: eat healthy, exercise, and such. I know, you’re asking “How can I preserve myself AND become more ambiguous in my speech and intentions”? Easy enough: just go ahead and stick your brain in one of those sci-fi jars with the tubes hooked to it. In addition to being impossible to read and probably giving you an extension on life, nobody is gonna dare fuck with a jar brain that has its medulla oblongata on the button.

• Ron Paul
  Even though you’re supposed to represent the contrarian point of view, I would say that you’re the less spunky version of Pat Buchanan. But that’s okay…you can be the smiling face of isolationism sprinkled with a light coating of Christian values. In your pitch to be President, remind people of how proud they will be to raise a child without government help, even though the same government wouldn’t allow them to remove the damn parasite when they wanted to. And remember to say it with that goofy grin of yours.