fried chicken theory of presidential elections

This will be a rare, ass-free blog entry. Which might make it boring, unless you like politics more than you like hearing about my bum.

I haven't said this too many times in my life, but I'm really happy to be in the United States right now. Not because I love my country, and not because I really missed good burgers or ESPN or my native language while I was overseas. I didn't really even miss the American health care system, even though I spent a minute or two thinking that the Brazilian health care system was about to kill me by accident.

Nope, I'm in the United States right now for the politics. (I'm also here because my girlfriend happens to be in North Carolina, recovering from a stubborn tropical disease... but you know that story already.) The Iowa caucuses are in five days, and seven different candidates have a reasonable chance at becoming our next president. We can even fantasize about brokered conventions. If you're a news junkie who stares at candidate interviews on YouTube instead of videos of chicks with big boobies, this is the best political porn ever.

I'm not going to lecture about who I think the best candidate is, but I'll tell you who will win. If I'm wrong, you can throw tomatoes at me in November.

The winner of the general election will be... the candidate with whom Americans would prefer to sit around and eat a bucket of fried chicken.

The (relative) King of Fried Chicken has won every single election since I've been alive. Bush beat Kerry and Gore because both Democrats seemed like really boring guys who were on low-fat diets. You know that I've never been a fan of Bush, but he has that "real guy" sort of appeal. I'm sure that George and I could have a great conversation about--I don't know, sports or women or whatever--over a pitcher of beer and a bucket of fried chicken in some shitty bar and grill in some small town in some flyover state.

And guess what? He won almost all of the "flyover" states.

You can keep going back, and the theory holds. Clinton could do some serious damage to a bucket of fried chicken, and he could talk to anybody about anything. Unsurprisingly, he beat two stiff Republicans. Michael Dukakis was a really good dude, but he was boring as hell, even compared to Bush Sr., and he looked like he ate ethnic food instead of fried chicken. Reagan was charming as all hell--who wouldn't prefer to hang with him than, say, Walter Mondale? Jimmy Carter and his little drawl did okay on the Fried Chicken O'Meter--far better than Gerald Ford--but he had no chance against Reagan. Hell, even chimps and Democrats were drawn to Reagan.

Even if you think I'm right about this, you might be wondering why the hell this matters right now. It's primary season. Too early to worry about fried chicken.

There are seven candidates who have a reasonable shot to win a major-party nomination--Clinton, Edwards, Obama, Giuliani, Romney, McCain, and Huckabee. Sorry, I think Thompson and Paul and Richardson (thankfully--I met him five times in New Mexico, and can assure you that he's a clueless asshole) have no chance.

Looking at these seven, we can put them in some sort of order on the fried chicken scale, and then use that to predict the winner of potential general election matchups. And the runaway winner is Mike Huckabee. Even if you're liberal, take some time to watch Mike Huckabee talk. Trust me--you want to hang out and eat greasy food with this guy, even if you think that his economic and foreign policy ideas are complete idiocy (and yes, they are).

After Huckabee... nobody comes close, really. You could argue for Obama (seems down-to-earth enough, but he's awfully skinny and has a funny name), Edwards (the combination of a $400 haircut and an over-the-top Southern drawl makes most of us uneasy), or maybe McCain (kind of prickly and getting a bit senile, but kind of in that likeable, "grandpa will tell you some hard facts about life while we eat fried chicken" kind of way). Let's say that Obama, Edwards, and McCain are tied for #2.

The three remaining candidates are pretty much tied for last. Romney is a slick-looking guy from Boston, and everybody hates Massholes and know that they're too full of themselves to eat fried chicken--plus he has the Mormon thing, which still creeps people out. Giuliani is even pricklier than McCain, and he's from New York, and he seems to be legitimately corrupt, and he knows that he's just too damn New York-y for fried chicken flyover country--which is why he's barely set foot in Iowa. Then there's Hillary, who might be okay over tea if she thinks she can get something from you, but it's downright impossible to imagine a warm, casual conversation with her over burgers or beer. I know quite a few people who have had conversations with Clinton, and not one has used the word "warm" to describe her.

I don't care what the polls say. Huckabee would beat any Democrat in the current field, and that scares the hell out of me. If you're a Republican, you should vote for him in the primaries.

At the same time, I think Hillary would get clobbered by almost anybody, besides maybe Giuliani or Romney--and Romney barely has a chance at getting the nomination, anyway. If you're a Democrat, you should vote for anybody but her.

Don't get me wrong--I actually think that Hillary would be a competent president. But if she gets the nomination, she'll lose if she's up against Huckabee or McCain.

And since I'm in North Carolina, I feel obligated to make one more comment about John Edwards. He supposedly has a genuine North Carolina accent. Nobody here talks like him. Not even close, really. Maybe I've just seen the wrong parts of the state, but my friend Ehren has lived in North Carolina since he was a teenager, and he says the same thing: the drawl sounds like a fake.

Okay, no more politics next time. I promise.