Thai Lite

Published on December 21, 2007

As the campaign for the coming US presidential election heats up, many non-Americans may be forgiven if they are mystified by the whole business. Well, welcome to the club. I'm an American, and I'm mystified, too. Mainly I can't understand why anybody in his right mind would ever want this job.  American presidential candidates are subjected to a gruelling gauntlet of debates and public appearances that only a masochist would willingly endure. One little slip, one wrong word uttered under pressure, and you're dead.

Worse, whoever wins this particular election will have to clean up the mess George W Bush made in Iraq.  Nobody but a moron would want that job.

Under these conditions, there's only one conceivable reason why anybody would want to run for president, and that's an insatiable lust for power. Do Americans want as their president a masochistic moron with an insatiable lust for power?

Probably not, but let's take a look at five of the current leading contenders to see if they have any redeeming qualities:

Democrats

At the time of writing, Hillary Clinton was the favoured candidate among the Democrats. Hillary has much to recommend her. She's tough, smart, articulate, experienced, and married to Bill. If she's elected, you can be sure that Bill will play an important role in her administration, although it's a pretty sure bet that she won't give him the job of interviewing prospective White House interns.

Her problem is that a sizeable percentage of the US population loathes her with an intensity bordering on paranoia. The fact that they are mostly right-wing males ought to tell us something.

Barack Obama is a nice-looking, articulate young senator from Illinois with a record as a social activist.  His surname might fool you into thinking he's Irish - O'Bama minus the apostrophe. But he's not. His father was from Kenya and his mother was from Kansas. You can't get more cosmopolitan than that. You could call him America's first globalised candidate.

Some people complain that he's not black enough. You don't hear anybody complaining that he's not white enough. He's half of each, which suggests he might be just the man to bring the country together.

Other people wonder if America is ready for a black president. But Obama isn't black, he's mixed, and so is the whole country. Some criticise his lack of experience. But the Bush administration has people with plenty of experience, and look where they've got us.

Most damaging for Obama was the recent discovery that he is distantly related to Dick Cheney. If Obama gets elected and encounters problems, don't expect him to run to Uncle Dick for advice.

Republicans

The front-runner at the time of writing was Rudolph Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City.  He is perceived as having performed magnificently during the 9/11 terrorist attacks.  Rudy is smart, feisty, and tough.  But the US is not New York City, and there's a question as to whether his experience will translate well onto the national and international stage.

If there's a major terrorist attack before the Republican convention, the Republicans may very well nominate Rudy, and the nation may very well elect him. It's a sad day for the United States when terrorist attacks can determine who's elected president.

An up-and-coming candidate who could catch fire in the Iowa and New Hampshire preliminaries is Mitt Romney. Romney is a Mormon. He has a son named Tagg.

Some Americans have doubts about voting for a Mormon, because the Mormons give their sons strange names like Mitt and Tagg. Also, some of their beliefs sound a bit off the wall. But that is a false issue, because lots of Americans have off-the-wall beliefs. Romney's just come from a slightly different wall.

Romney used to be governor of Massachusetts, my home state. If he could stand living in Massachusetts, he deserves extra points. Also to his credit is the fact that Mormons tend to be very decent people.

One interesting Republican candidate is Mike Huckabee. He's a former evangelical preacher who was governor of Arkansas and comes from Bill Clinton's hometown of Hope. His problem is that his surname sounds like a brand of chewing tobacco, and he's regarded as unelectable. But Chuck Norris has endorsed him, and anybody endorsed by Chuck Norris is not to be sneezed at.

S Tsow  

S Tsow can be flamed at stsow@yahoo.com,

except when he's wondering how anybody endorsed by Chuck Norris could possibly lose an election.