Operation Hail Mary

"Saturday Night Live" dropped a bombshell last night, coincidentally a Saturday, when they reported that former Governor Mike Huckabee was launching a top secret and last-ditch effort to overtake John McCain to win the Republican presidential nomination. Huckabee's plan, codenamed Operation Hail Mary, was to steal superdelegates out from underneath Senator Barack Obama. Governor Huckabee has reportedly promised some sort of quid pro quo if a superdelegate was willing to switch his or her vote from Obama to Huckabee. What is Governor Huckabee promising in return for this? His band will cover Bob Dylan songs at your wedding, kid's birthday party, or whatever office parties you have coming up.

If all this fails, Governor Huckabee has promised to implement a sinister and insidious Plan B, codenamed Operation Chuck Norris Will Whip Your Ass, All While Not Even Breaking a Sweat.

And in the unlikely event that even Chuck Norris fails, Governor Huckabee will implement a much more moderate, and potentially much more entertaining, Plan C - he will star in the movie version of Bill Clinton's autobiography "My Life" in the title role of "Bill Clinton." Emma Thompson is slated to play a character named "Hillary Clinton." Hollywood Liberal Rob Reiner will direct.

Chuck Norris will play all the rest of the roles (Al Gore, Tipper Gore, Madeline Albright, Janet Reno, George Stephanopoulos) because, well, he wanted to.

The "Cool Kids" Election

Imagine you are at a party. You are a single guy. You look around and see a lot of single ladies. Making a good impression on a few of them is in your own self-interest. You go up to a group of them and start chatting. Eventually the topic of politics come up. People start talking about who they like for president. And you chime in to say you like Mitt Romney because he represents "real change in Washington." You know what happens next? You are not only standing there by yourself but you may also find yourself being asked to leave this party.

Let's talk about all this talk about "change" going on. Coming from a Republican, this is just plain silly talk. Mitt Romney supports George W. Bush and his policies. Where does Romney disagree with Bush? I am not sure. If anything, Romney wants to out-Bush Bush. You may remember him saying he wants to "double Guantanamo." Heck, even Bush said he wants to close Guantanamo down. Romney just picked up on the "change" message when cool kid Barack Obama used it in spectacular fashion in Iowa and in South Carolina.

I just have trouble believing that this particular rich white guy named Mitt Romney can represent change. What in his past shows that he has been fighting for change? I mean, beyond three weeks ago, what? What in Mitt Romney's past shows he has been interested in anything besides making money?

This is going to be a "cool kids" election. Barack Obama is an historic candidate. Hillary Clinton is an historic candidate. Either of them becoming president would move us past the little narrow paradigm we have chosen to live in for far too long. (I myself am aiming to be the first half-Asian, half-Jewish president. I am turning 35 this year. We shall see.) Now I am not saying that being a white guy should disqualify you from being president. But white guys running for president are going to have to bring their "A" game from now on.

What is Mitt Romney's "A" game? Well, he doesn't have one. Ronald Reagan had one. Bill Clinton had one. Even George W. Bush had one. All of these candidates could create a kind of unity with wide swaths of people. Their communication skills allowed this. Mitt Romney, not so much.