Well, why not.
Here's just a partial list of what this election year has offered so far (and it's only mid-October):
- An attack ad run by a candidate for coroner in Orleans Parish portrayed the incumbent coroner as Dr. Frankenstein.
- In the California GOP Senate primary, the Fiorina campaign ran an ad featuring a "demon sheep."
- Whether or not one candidate waxes his back became an issue in a Florida primary.
- Nevada election officials implemented a rule requiring anyone wearing a chicken suit to stay at least 100 feet away from any polling place.
- Elvis Presley is running for governor of Arkansas.
- The Democratic Senate nominee in South Carolina suggested he would create jobs by employing people to make a line of action figures featuring himself.
- A clown was elected to the Brazilian legislature.
- Another clown has been forced to run ads to confirm that she is not a witch.
and now,
- The Naked Cowboy has announced he is running for president.
The Naked Cowboy, as you probably know, generally hangs out in Times Square playing a guitar while wearing only briefs, boots and a cowboy hat. He has also appeared here two or three times, once when he sued the company that makes M&Ms (they dressed M&Ms up the same way), and more recently because of a cease-and-desist letter he sent to the Naked Cowgirl. Last week, he held a press conference (also in Times Square) to announce he had decided to run for president.
Note the Obama-style logo on the podium.
The Cowboy, also known as Robert Burck, said that he was a member of (can you guess?) the Tea Party movement, and had registered as a Republican in Ohio. He said he was running "in defense of individual liberty" and supported tax cuts, free markets, immigration reform, and a number of other disappointingly serious-sounding issues.
In what is probably a good move if he hopes to be taken seriously, Burck got a haircut and, thankfully, wore pants for the announcement.
To the Brazilian who apparently thought that by writing about the landslide election victory of an illiterate clown in that country, I was suggesting that the American political process is somehow superior to the one in Brazil, please see above.
