The Last Presidential Ticket

There are still a few days left before President Obama
takes office and it looks as if the 2012 GOP ticket is
already taking form.

Let me be the first to predict the ticket – Sarah Palin and
Joe the Plumber. Literally. I mean, I think Joe
Whathisface will actually change his last name to
“ThePlumber”, for, you know, name recognition.

Right now, he’s come out with a new book and, as I
understand it, has been appointed as the US Ambassador
to Gaza – or maybe that’s “reporter”, for a web site called PJTV. Perhaps that stands for
“Plumber Joe Television”?

Joe told somebody on the news that he believes he will be safe in Gaza – God will protect him - because he is a Christian. The rationale behind that statement, when one considers he’s going to a place filled with battling Arabs & Jews, escapes me, but, hey, maybe that’s why I’m not in consideration for a cabinet position in the Palin/Plumber Administration.

In ThePlumber’s new book, it is said, he takes shots at John McCain (figuratively, of course) for supporting the economic bailout. In one interview he said, five or six times, that he wasn’t throwing McCain under the bus. While somewhat presumptive, that may be the smartest thing he has said. Throwing war heroes under a bus does not generally work well for political candidates, unless those war heroes are (how do you say?) Democrats, like John Kerry or Max Cleland.

Personally, I wish Joe all the best in his newfound career. I don’t blame him one bit for trying to take his 15 minutes and ride it for all he can. And I wonder if maybe there’s a politician somewhere I could get to come fix the float valve in my toilet. Getting tired of jiggling the handle.

Not to be outdone by all the attention Joe is getting from the press, Sarah Palin is also taking some shots at McCain and his failed campaign, as well as Katie Couric and Tina Fey. Everybody knows you’re not a serious presidential contender until you get into a real tussle with Tina Fey.

Sister Sarah was mortified when Saturday Night Live did the Tina Fey skit wherein Tina’s Palin character said she believed marriage should be “between two unwilling teenagers”. Pretty funny, everyone agrees, but nobody cleared that skit with Palin before running it. How dare they! It’s just another example of the media’s unfair treatment of Caribou Barbie. That incident may be the only time in the show’s long history that they didn’t get permission from a politician before doing a skit that made fun of her, or him. If this weren’t true, we certainly would have heard from Gerald Ford or Jimmy Carter or Ronald Reagan or even Dan Quayle – surely Dan Quayle – by now. Palin, it seems, expects SNL to be fair & balanced, like Fox News.

Or maybe not. Could be she just wants to keep her name in the newspapers and on television for another three years, until the next presidential campaign begins. And, again, who can blame her? She was vaulted into the national light by John McCain, but everybody knows he’s washed up now. There’s nothing more he can do for her, but allow her to trash talk him and his campaign in order to keep her name, and her dream, alive. I’m doing my part.

Now comes the touchy little end-of-the-world issue, however. According to a whole bunch of prognosticators, who apparently didn’t read Larry Stroud’s fine article about the Mayan Calendar in the Batesville Guard, it’s curtains for civilization on December 21, 2012. So, while the next (and last?) election will be over by then, whoever is elected President wouldn’t take office until January 20 of 2013. So, what’s going to be the campaign platform of the Palin/Plumber ticket? Lower taxes? I don’t know about the rest of you, and please don’t leak this to the IRS, but in the event of a cataclysmic polar shift of the planet and total breakdown of world civilization and all the “important” people zipping off in a spaceship to form a new world, I’m probably going to just forego the whole income tax thing and take my chances, there in my cave.

Truth be told, I can’t think of a finer couple to preside over the good ol’ US of A in those coming hard times. Palin could teach those of us not familiar with the art how to hunt and prepare wild animals for tasty and inexpensive meals, even if we don’t have helicopters from which to shoot them. And Big Joe could, maybe, rig up some pipes in the caves so guys like me aren’t always annoyed with having to jiggle that handle.

Consider this, if you will, the first newspaper endorsement of the Palin/Plumber ticket.

© 2009, Rick Baber