altie -
I have decided to throw my weight behind Kerry because a long face is better than a squished face!
that reminds me of an article i read
last week that gave me a real chuckle.
i know you're not thin-skinned and can
laugh at it too.
Longface, Babywide, Silverhead, Chunk and Massive Swelling. Those are my names for the Democratic candidates stalking the American nation right now.
I am so desperate to see Junior Bush removed as leader of the planet that I have taken my deepest beliefs and principles and tossed them for the duration. I am a modern electoral menace, a Chris-Craft skimming along the surface, for I don't care if the Democratic thing that wins has a scaly, knife-like tail that thrashes and flings blinding venom, as long as it isn't Junior Bush.
All I assess in a Democratic candidate is his electability, not his worth. I'm thinking hair, wardrobe, height, athleticism, and how well he fits the "look" that Americans want in a president. Canadians don't really care what our prime ministers look like; when pressed, we say we like them "ordinary, I guess." Americans have a presidential template. (Strangely, Junior Bush doesn't fit it. He's awkward, defensive, simian, never affable except when drunk, his haircut is criminal and he looks short. Americans hate short. This is proof he stole the election.)
Massive Swelling (title credit to columnist-commentator Cintra Wilson) is Al Sharpton. Deceptive to the core, he even uses campaign consultants who work for Republicans. They aim to display his black face to every racist U.S. voter; he merely wants to ride in a limousine. Few readers will remember his Tawana Brawley pit of shame. It doesn't matter, for Mr. Sharpton is fat. Since all Americans are either fat or so worried about being fat that they don't see anything absurd in the phrase "my relationship with food," Fat Al's finished.
Howard Dean has a heavy head. He's solid everywhere, a Chunk. Now chunky can be good (Bill Clinton got away with it), but Mr. Dean has a chunky neck, which is off-putting, and at some level reminds people of Mike Dukakis. His "scream speech" was a media bandwagon. I thought it was a fine rah-rah speech for a room full of young people, and reporters aren't young. Anyway, who cares? Middle American men won't vote for doctors because they don't want to envision the guy giving the State of the Union address having ever touched -- or, God forbid, probed -- a naked man.
That leaves Longface, Babywide and Silverhead, which means John Kerry, John Edwards and Wesley Clark.
General Clark is the fresh new hotness. He is tall and slim. He has Clint Eastwood eyes. I despise Clint Eastwood, but here in the "lookist" moral shallows, my adjectives don't shame me. Gen. Clark, 59, narrows his eyes, sees trouble in the distance. But he has seen trouble before. He was wounded in Vietnam, knows how to run the giant bureaucracy called the U.S. military, and his previous job title had the word "supreme" in it. Like Ike. His smile bestows blessings; he wins on looks and energy. But kill the argyle sweaters. Sweaters are doable, but they must be navy, and that's all she wrote.
Babywide is Senator John Edwards. The fact that he has a baby face and a big, wide grin that makes him look younger than his age, 50, is not a handicap as the media geezers suggest. JFK's puffy face kept him looking young, and since no one knew it was caused by medication for Addison's disease, they loved it. Most white American men have baby faces, wide grins and Edwards hair. So they will vote for their clone.
So will women once they hear how Mr. Edwards and his beloved teenaged son, Wade, climbed a mountain together. The next year, the boy was killed in a car accident. Did the family give up on life the way the rest of us would? No, they had two more children. Bonus: This legitimizes Mr. Edwards's fondness for wearing Gore-Tex hiking boots when he's talking to rural voters. Furthermore, he grew up poor but he made himself rich by using lawyerly nerves of platinum to defend poor people and disabled children, so I say, yes to the Ermenegildo Zegna suits. You earned them, Babywide.
And then comes Longface. I think Mr. Kerry will win the nomination unless his rich-wife-with-a-personality actually hits him in public or something. But even then, he has stacks of dark hair with silver etchings that look great on him (and unaccountably awful on me; figure that one out). Furthermore, he's athletic. The man, 60, can skate and look sexy in a hockey uniform, which is a mystery even to Canadians. Junior can't even dance with a woman, much less whip it in the net, nudge, nudge.
Longface was twice wounded in Vietnam and rescued buddies in a bullet storm while being openly antiwar (Junior walked across an aircraft carrier with straps on his crotch -- spot the difference?), but soldierly virtue is nothing compared with his biggest asset. His face is craggy and will grow craggier in office. Americans like craggy. And he will wear a tie in the Oval Office, so fear not the open-necked shirts and bomber jackets.
Predicting whom the Democrats will pick is not therefore a matter of issues but of combinations. Not that Junior Bush won't have this problem; Dick Cheney will die at the worst possible time, at the convention just as he is asked to run as vice-president again. "Yes." Clunk.
Democratic combinations: If Longface wins, will perpendicular craggy look weird beside Babywide's horizontal smooth? If Longface chooses Silverhead, will that be too much camouflage gear in the White House?
Who cares? What really matters is the clash of male hair. Maybe a little Grecian formula for Silverhead, and a closer, more modern cut for Longface. Bring back the cut George Clooney discarded, I say. John Frieda makes a lovely hair-calming product, Mr. Kerry. Have your people call my people.
globeandmail.ca
-rose |
