By Sean Sullivan Lagniappe columnist

Mesmerized by the presidential race

I’ve been busy lately working on a column on how the British hold the Wimbledon Tennis Tournament on the Fourth of July weekend each year in an attempt to divert world attention from America’s yearly victory celebration. The English, being sore losers, had to stage this damn tennis tournament, on grass of all un-bouncy surfaces, to try to steal some of our limelight that comes from the brilliant explosions of bottle rockets, aerials, Roman Candles and tri-color helicopters in their 13 lost colonies and lands beyond.

Problem is, my ineptness in British tennis history and my obsession with the current presidential race has gotten me sidetracked. Speaking of the race, holy presidential posturing Batman, what a summer of executive branch campaigning! If this is just July, I can’t wait to see what the candidates throw at each other in October and onto the finish.

Because I have no dog in this hunt (for you newly arrived Thyssen Krupp executives and secreted Boeing spies from the northwest, in southern vernacular, this means I don’t have a favorite candidate), the current presidential race is a perfect one for me to sit back and analyze for just what it is, the most expensive popularity contest in the world. As we get closer to November, more mud than you’d see at a monster truck rally will be slung by both candidates, and I for one love it. With maybe the exception of posting incorrect information to Wikipedia pages, keeping up with the down and dirty politics of the presidential home stretch is my favorite pastime these days.

Yes, I am actually celebrating mudslinging, which is nothing new in American politics. It has been a fixture of our blessedly free political system since the time of Adams and Jefferson. It is a way for the candidates to spend lots of their dollars vetting each other so we the voters can decide which candidate disgusts us least. I feel confident we will get their money’s worth out of this race.

Obama and McCain, bless their hearts, are at least trying to slightly camouflage their mudslinging at this point. They are using the old courtroom trick of saying something derogatory about their opponent as a quote from some other source and then saying they aren’t the kind of person who will discuss that kind of accusation. Obama will say he is not going to get into a discussion as to whether McCain’s age makes him a bad choice for president and McCain will state that he will not dignify a discussion as to Obama’s patriotism or religious bent.

Either way both guys get to make disparaging remarks about each other all the while taking the “high road.” We shouldn’t get angry with these tactics. The candidates are just playing the game with the rules that have been laid down for them over the last 200 years.

I did see a lost opportunity over the weekend for the Obama campaign when they passed on the chance to sponsor NASCAR driver Ken Schrader’s number 49 Toyota in an upcoming race. You know the phrase preaching to the choir? That is what Barack has been doing for the bulk of this presidential race. Here was a chance to get into a NASCAR race to get in front of a whole new group of voters. Obama needs little help swaying most of the minority vote or motivating the Northeastern and West Coast’s so-called intellectuals, but he sure as hell needs a little help in the car-race-watching voting block. Bad move Obama in not getting your name on a racecar.

As for McCain, gramps needs to think more Golden Globes than Golden Girls to get his message out. He needs to find a way to get a message to younger voters like maybe getting rappers, especially the Dirty South gangster types, to throw positive references to him into their raps. Not anything direct and weak like “Hip-hop McCain,” but gangsta lyrics like “I’ve got a ho’ who brings me money, beer and fame just like my main-thug John McCain.”

I don’t think it would be too much of a stretch for a tough guy rapper, with the right amount of chedda’ thrown his way, to put a reference to John McCain into a rhyme about being tough. McCain also needs to work the old thing to his advantage and ask voters if they were looking for wisdom and advice would they listen to one of their peers or take the word of their grandparents? McCain should also point out that he is 10 years younger than Hugh Hefner and we all know that the senior Hef’ is still young enough to …ahem, get it done.

I wish we elected a new president every year so I would never be without an executive branch race to monitor. Is it too much to ask for? We get a new “American Idol” every year, why not a new commander in chief? That of course opens up a whole new world of questions that I can’t begin to answer until I get to the bottom of this Wimbledon fiasco.

Well back to work, ain’t it great to be an American?

Sean Sullivan is Lagniappe lagniappe columnist. Contact him at ssullivan@lagniappemobile.com.

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