Balancing the Ticket

With the Presidential election looming this fall, the stakes are high for victory. Not since Rodney King was beaten on national television has a drama been so riveting. A “President Obama” will likely make wholesale changes of how the beurocratic red tape is spun. “President McCain” would be a wild-card, but likely to keep things closer to the status quo more so than the smooth talking Democrat. The two major parties seek a win at all cost. With that in mind, both need to consider balancing the tickets. Their Vice Presidential choices are the way to accomplish the proper equilibrium. Obama needs an experienced stalwart with impressive foreign policy credentials, and McCain requires one appealing to youth, women, blacks and the economy.

Obama will have to reach for some version of a crotchety old man, likely in the form of an elder statesman such as Senator Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, or Sam Nunn. We’ve heard from some mention the large-eared Chicago Senator resembles Opie from The 1960’s Andy Griffith Show. Since President Opie is modeling his public personification motif on John Kennedy who could be a better choice as a running mate for such a cutting silhouette than Andy Griffith? He has age, grey hair and the home spun wisdom that will allow those bitter rural religious gun clinging citizens to vote for such a ticket. They could whistle the Andy Griffith Show theme song all the way to the White House!

McCain for his part needs to find someone that looks like Dan Quayle and makes as little sense as Obama. Oh yeah that is Quayle, but we’ve been down that rocky road before! Perhaps someone a less maligned who has less political baggage like ABC’s Doogie Howser (Neil Patrick Harris) would be a good selection. True Doogie looked like he was 12 when he was a doctor curing all sorts of maladies in the allotted 60 minute TV slot during the late 80’s and early 90’s. Today he still survives on TV, but as the typical sex crazed male Barney Stinson on the CBS sitcom “How I Met Your Mother.” Choosing the baby-faced MD would be a stroke of genius for capturing the youth vote or at least the "geek vote.”

If all else fails another way to balance both tickets comes to mind. Since the talk of having Obama select Senator Chuck Hagel (a Republican) and McCain perhaps choosing Senator Joe Lieberman (a Democrat) is currently the hot topic, it leads to the obvious solution. What each of these guys needs is someone like the other. A McCain-Obama ticket or an Obama-McCain ticket would be quite a balance on everything. It would also reflect the continuing deep divisions that the country feels in so many areas. On top of that we’d only have to suffer through one political convention! We’d get the crotchety old guy with a temper that east prunes and sort of looks like them, and we’d get the youthful fairy tale-like Camelot revisited character too What a balance! What better way to solve all of our problems? Maybe with such a ticket we could achieve Rodney King’s plea, and finally all just get along!