One Comic's Guide to the Candidates--Part 1

For our State of the Union special at Manuel's I set out to write a gag about each of the declaired or likely presidential candidates for 2008. Here's a few:

Hillary Clinton hopes to become the first woman married to a former president to become president thereby advancing the cause of women everywhere that happend to marry well.

John McCain is running a 2nd time. Having made nice with Jerry Falwell and refusing to speak ill of James Dobson, McCain's original "Straight Talk Express" campaign bus has been replaced by the "Trans-Bible Belt Panderer." And it don't run on no bio-diesel.

Barack Obama is a smoker. Do we really want a president suspending matters of state every 10 minutes to go out by the dumpster?

Rudolph Giuliani would be only the 2nd Catholic president. But unlike John F. Kennedy, Giuliani's disease-ravaged prostate should make for a much duller Lincoln Bedroom.

Congressman Dennis Kucinich is making his 2nd run for the White House. He's called for the creation of a Department of Peace. Imagine, a cabinet-level drum circle.

Congressman Duncan Hunter is also running. Unique amoung the candidates, he combines a very masculine surname with a kinda gay first name. His likely running mate: New Hampshire State Comptroller Bareback Steele.

Al Gore has not completely ruled out running again, but is more likely to do a follow-up to his Oscar-nominated documentary An Inconvenient Truth. This time he'll look at global warming from the Japanese soldiers' perspective.

Nebraska Senator Chuck Hegel is considering a run. He opposes the troop surge, is a fierce critic of President Bush's handling of the war and claims today's Republican Party is not the one he joined years ago. But he still may win the party's nomination with his stirring "Fuck all y'all" stump speech.