Presidential campaign drama better than TV

By Alex Hall

Nearly fourteen mind-numbing weeks into the writers’ strike and after countless hours of vigorous channel surfing, I have finally found something titillating enough to distract me until the comfort of scripted television returns. I’ll give you a hint: it includes a lot of petty bickering, plenty of insults and cheap shots and a bevy of self-involved rich people promising change.

No, I’m not talking about “Celebrity Rehab.”

What I’m talking about, of course, is the 2008 presidential race. With the election a mere nine months away, the candidates seem intent on producing more and more juicy material for us entertainment-starved T.V. junkies to ingest. And lucky for us, the insults are flying more recklessly than a drunken airline pilot. The result is a much more amusing version of the ill-advised MTV show “Yo Momma.”

And with both major parties lacking a clear frontrunner, the election actually has some semblance of competition and suspense.

I have to say, this presidential race has become more entertaining than any reality show I’ve seen since “The Real World: San Diego.” (San Diego was hands down the best season of “The Real World.” Don’t even try to fight me on this.)

In the past month, we have seen Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton trade their share of barbs. During a Democratic debate in South Carolina on Jan. 21, Obama told Hillary Clinton that while he was helping unemployed workers in Chicago during the late 1980s, “you were a corporate lawyer sitting on the board of Wal-Mart.” Ouch. But you know Hillary wasn’t about to let that slide. Sen. Clinton responded that while she was fighting against misguided Republican policies in Washington, Obama was “practicing law and representing your contributor… in his slumlord business in inner city Chicago.”

Zing.

While those digs may seem relatively mild, what these two battling senators were about to accuse each other of was downright slanderous. They each claimed that the other was a fan of Ronald Reagan. There isn’t much worse you can accuse a self-respecting Democrat. I’m surprised those comments didn’t result in an all-out brawl.

Not to be outdone, the Republicans have also launched some vicious attacks against each other. Somewhat mirroring Senators Obama and Clinton, John McCain and Mitt Romney recently accused each other of being a liberal. To Republicans, “liberal” is considered the worst of the curse words. Being labeled as such is the ultimate insult, and also the ultimate weapon.

Taking the cake for most petty, and probably most humorous, attack by a candidate definitely has to be Mike Huckabee. After his Republican counterpart Mitt Romney was videotaped making a campaign stop at a Kentucky Fried Chicken in Florida, Huckabee criticized the Massachusetts governor for removing the skin from his delicious piece of chicken. Huckabee went on to question Romney’s manhood and his viability as a candidate in the south.

“I can tell you this,” Huckabee said, “any Southerner knows if you don’t eat the skin, don’t bother calling it fried chicken.” He went on to say, “I’m glad that he did that, because that means I’m going to win Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma … all these great Southern states that understand the best part of fried chicken is the skin, if you’re going to eat it that way.”

Whether or not all this petty bickering is helping the democratic process, I can’t really say. But for better or worse, it all seems to be happening at just the right time: during the writers’ strike.

Right now we have little choice other than to watch and listen to the candidates, and it seems as if people are actually starting to care about politics. People are being drawn in, and, believe it or not, people are starting to understand the candidates’ positions on important issues.

Even if this political fever doesn’t last, at least I found something that’ll kill some time until “The Office” comes back.