2016 Presidential Candidate Roundup, Part I (Lasso Them at Your Own Risk)

By P.J. O'Rourke

If he or she gets elected, which candidate would have what financial effect on you?

I can answer that question in three sentences: If any of the candidates who are most likely to be elected get elected, you're screwed. However, there are also some candidates who would keep you from being screwed if they got elected. But they aren't going to get elected, so you're screwed.

Who are these jacklegs, highbinders, wire-pullers, mountebanks, swellheads, buncombe spigots, boodle artists, four-flushers and animated spittoons offering themselves as worthy of America's highest office?

Do they take us voters for fools? Of course they do. But are they also deluded? Are they also insane? Are they receiving radio broadcasts on their teeth fillings telling them they'd be good presidents?

Clinton, Bush, Fiorina, Sanders, Rubio, Cruz, Kasich, Huckabee, Christie, Santorum, O'Malley, Jindal, Graham, Pataki, Chafee, and Trump.

That's not a list of presidential candidates. That's the worst law firm in the world. That's a law firm that couldn't get Caitlyn Jenner off on a charge of Bruce Jenner identity theft.

Has the office of the presidency diminished in stature until it attracts only the leprechauns of public life? Or have our politicians shrunk until none of them can pass the carnival test – "You Must Be Taller Than the Clown to Ride the White House Tilt-A-Whirl"?

Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that – after all is said and done and the smoke has cleared – the two candidates for president are probably still going to be Clinton and Bush.

Members of the electorate will go into the ballot booth, see those two names, and think to themselves, "Gosh, I'm getting forgetful. I did this already"... and leave without marking the ballot. Voter turnout will be 6%.

The shuttle from the local old-age home will send a few senile Republicans to the polls. A Democratic National Committee bus will collect some derelicts from skid row. And we will have the first president of the United States elected by a franchise limited to sufferers from Alzheimer's disease and drunken bums.

Meanwhile, I support Donald Trump – because of something the great political satirist H.L. Mencken said: "Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard."

Trump's chief domestic policy will be to appear on TV. That's one reason he's leading in the polls. Americans can relate to Trump. The first and foremost goal of everyone in America is to be on TV.

As president, Trump will get to be on TV all the time, 24/7. But this might not be all bad. Just spraying his hair during commercial breaks should keep Trump too busy to push any other birdbrain domestic policies the way President Obama has.

And Trump can yell "You're fired!" all he wants. It will make for a healthy turnover in Trump cabinet appointees such as Ivanka, Dennis Rodman, Larry King, and Vince McMahon.

Plus, Trump understands the American economy. He'll push America's economic growth the same way he pushed his own – with bad debt, bad debt, and more bad debt.

The average American household debt is now more than $225,000. Trump has "restructured" $3.5 billion in business debt and $900 million in personal debt. ("Restructured" being the Trump way of saying he didn't pay it.) We Americans know a leader when we see one!

Americans love debt. Otherwise America's national debt wouldn't have gone from $15 billion in 1930 to $18 trillion today. If Trump gets in the Oval Office, the sky is the limit.

Then, imagine Trump's foreign policy. Here's a guy who seems to be under the illusion that he's about 10 times richer than he actually is, who believes Obama was born in Karjackistan to the Queen of Sheba, and who thinks childhood vaccination caused the movie Rain Man. Russia, China, Iran, ISIS, the Taliban, and Hamas will be paralyzed with fear. Who knows what this lunatic will do?

What he'll do is build hundreds of Trump casinos, Trump hotels, and Trump resorts in Moscow, Beijing, Tehran, Raqqa, Kandahar, and the Gaza Strip. Then, all of them will go bankrupt the way Trump Taj Mahal, Trump Plaza Hotel, and Trump Entertainment Resorts did. He will leave Russia trying to palm off eastern Ukraine on angry bondholders, and China, auctioning distressed property in the Spratly Islands.

Hell, this might just work!

So... who else do we have running for president?

Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton

Hillary retains her iron grip on second place because whoever is ahead of her is so far ahead, we don't know who it is yet.

I mean, at this point in the 2008 election cycle, Barack Hussein Obama was as likely to be nominated for president as a small-time community-organizing junior Senator from Illi-wherever with a name like somebody who tried to sabotage an airplane with an underpants bomb.

Speaking of airplanes, Hillary carries more baggage than the Boeing she used as Secretary of State to visit every country that later blew up in her face in her quest to fulfill the mission of the U.S. Secretary of State, which is to accumulate frequent-flier miles.

On the upside, she's familiar with the White House. She knows where the extra toilet paper is stored and where the spare key to the nuke-missile launch-briefcase is hidden (the Truman Balcony, second pillar from the right).

Vice President Joe Biden

The Democratic Party Establishment's Plan B. But, oops, the "B" part of Plan B – the Biden part – doesn't think the plan is any good. My guess is that Joe decided not to run after Googling himself. Enter "Biden quotes" into a search engine, and here's what you get:

• On Barack Obama: "You got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy."
• On diversity: "In Delaware, the largest growth of population is Indian Americans, moving from India. You cannot go to a 7-11 or a Dunkin' Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent."
• On his faith in Obamacare, while speaking at a political fundraiser in Missouri: "I'm told Chuck Graham, state senator is here. Stand up Chuck, let 'em see you." (Graham is paraplegic.)
• On Obama's foreign policy, right after Obama was elected: "Watch, we're going to have an international crisis."

Has anyone ever spoken for H.L. Mencken's "common man" like Joe?

At one time, Joe was thinking about Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren as his vice president running mate. I'm thinking Lizzie might still show up on a "Girls Gone Wild" presidential ticket.

Warren has Native American ancestry.

How?

As well you may ask. But it's a fundraising plus... if she gets her own casino.

Warren is an expert in bankruptcy law, giving her a vision for our nation's future. She masterminded the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Everybody feeling protected enough yet? And Warren turned left – the only direction that GPS units give in the hybrid cars that vegan aroma-therapist Democratic primary voters drive.

Then there is the candidate who is so far ahead of Hillary that we don't know who it is yet. That would be the screwy-kablooey commander of the Vermont-Cong.

Senator Bernie Sanders

Bernie is a socialist. He says so himself. Let me give you the dictionary definition of "socialist." A socialist is somebody who will take your flat-screen TV and give it to a family of meth addicts in the backwoods of Vermont.

Bernie says he wants to make America more like Europe. Great idea. Europe has had a swell track record for 100 years now – ever since Archduke Ferdinand's car got a flat in Sarajevo in 1914. Make America more like Europe? Where do you even go to get all the Nazis and Commies and 90 million dead people that it would take to make America more like Europe?

Regards,

P.J. O'Rourke