We won’t lie—the recent conclusion of the heart-palpitatingly exciting 2008 presidential election has left us with a gaping hole in our political soul the size of Sarah Palin’s ego. In fact, the combination of Barack Obama’s improbable Old Dominion victory and Virgil Goode’s epoch-ending defeat left us totally gobsmacked, with the creeping fear that we might never have anything interesting to write about again. Really, what are we supposed to do? Make fun of Tom Perriello’s hilarious history of helping the debilitated and destitute in Darfur? (Try saying that three times fast.) Or make yet another joke about Obama’s hypoallergenic puppy? (And no, that isn’t the President-Elect’s pet name for campaign manager David Plouffe.) In fact, we were so down that we had resigned ourselves to penning an entire column about Del. Dave Albo (R-Dumbass) waging a losing war against his own Wikipedia entry. But then—praise Clinton!—the political heavens opened up, and out tumbled notoriously unhinged Hillary spokes-loon Terry McAuliffe (a.k.a. the Macker).
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Crowning carpetbagger Terry McAuliffe as governor may not make sense for the Old Dominion, but his gubernatorial bid is excellent for the Odd Dominion. |
Yes, the man who spent the final stages of the presidential primary season impersonating Baghdad Bob on every available cable news station, making ever-more-implausible claims of an impending Clinton victory (once while sporting an eye-flash-inducing Hawaiian shirt and brandishing a bottle of Puerto Rican rum) is now threatening to enter the Virginia gubernatorial race—and we couldn’t be happier!
Sure, the Macker’s links to our glorious Commonwealth are tenuous, at best (born and raised in Syracuse, New York, McAuliffe has used McLean, Virginia, as his home base for almost two decades, but travels incessantly). And yes, the man is a bit of a state-executive tease, having previously expressed interest in running for the governorship of both New York and Florida, where his in-laws reside. (In fact, as the irascible blogger Not Larry Sabato pointed out, McAuliffe has already been caught on tape referring to the “research institutes and all the universities we have here in Florida” while talking to voters in Prince William County.)
But who cares? Not us, that’s for sure. C’mon, this is a guy who wrestled an alligator for a $15,000 contribution while working on Jimmy Carter’s 1980 re-election campaign. That’s the sort of lunatic commitment to the wacky world of politics that you rarely see outside of the Italian parliament, and it fill us with the giddy joy of an eggnog-besotted child on Christmas morning.
Of course, the two existing Democratic candidates, Alexandria state Delegate Brian Moran and state Senator Creigh Deeds, are already painting McAuliffe as a partisan loudmouth and a dilettante, but they’re going to have to do more than point out the obvious to trump the Macker’s notorious fundraising ability. With insiders already speculating that McAuliffe could raise upwards of 75 million semolians for his Virginia effort, Deeds and Moran (say, didn’t they have a 1970s mime-based variety show?) can only hope that McAuliffe’s inexperience and lousy track record proves his undoing. After all, the man has never run for elected office before, and almost every presidential campaign he’s ever worked on (Carter, Dick Gephardt, Hillary Clinton) has ended in defeat.
But let the naysayers say their nays all day, we say! Personally, we can’t get enough of the Macker, and hope that he’s truly in it for the long haul. Hell, if he promises to wrestle Jim Webb in a wading pool full of cranberry relish while wearing the Cavalier mascot outfit, we might even vote for the guy!