RUTHFULLY YOURS

I can’t tell you how excited I am at the news that good ol’ SpongeBob is throwing his and Callista’s Squarepants into the ring for the Stupid Party’s 2012 designated-loser/presidential-candidate sweepstakes, thus joining an already crowded field of unelectables, has-beens, never-wases, never-will-be’s, who’s-he mystery men, libertarians, radical libertarians, pizza guys, former governors of Minnesota, and just plain nut jobs. Way to go, GOP! No wonder we call you the Stupid Party. You’ve earned it.

Not that Mr. Newt isn’t brilliant. He could probably whip us all on Jeopardy, especially if they asked real questions about history and stuff, instead of about Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga. But he was born in 1943, which makes him six years older than my dad, the sainted “Che” Kahane, and there’s no way I’m voting for my old man for president.

I mean, here you have His Serene Majesty the Emperor Barack Hussein Obama II, Lord of the Flies, Keeper of the Hoops, Master of the Greens, Bringer of Kinetic Military Action, Vacationer-in-Chief, Slayer of Osama, and Protector of the Holy Cities of Honolulu and Chicago, who — despite his impressive array of titles — is probably the most beatable incumbent since George H. W. Bush, and you won’t even try to beat him? Good Gaia, people, where’s the politically correct fighting spirit that negotiated a peace-process settlement with the West? The government program that subsidized the wagon trains? Libby Custer’s grief counselors after the Little Big Horn? Your intrepid forebears would be ashamed of you. Ours, not so much, since they were in therapy at the time.

Like almost none of you, I was riveted by the first-in-the-Fox-nation Republican debate the other day, and thrilled to make the acquaintance of a bunch of guys I’ll probably never lay eyes on again. While personally I’m glad that you wingnuts now officially favor legalizing heroin and sending women who exercise their semi-divine right to choose to Gitmo for enhanced interrogation, I don’t think this is a winning combo, blue-state-wise. If you’re going to beat Li’l Barry, you’re going to need to take off the gloves and bring out the A-team, not the Expendables.

Now, before you start getting all wee-wee’d up about the likes of Mr. Newt, Mitt, Michele, Sarah, Rudy, Mitch, and some Chinese guy named Huntsman, take a deep breath, settle back on the Barcalounger, and call your Obamacare state-approved caregiver — you’re having a hallucination. None of these folks is going to be president.

Newt has had as many wives as Osama, while Massachusetts Mitt is a hologram, an astral projection brought on by advanced medical technology that can produce the simulacrum of a candidate without, you know, the actual substance. Sarah will soon be best known as “Herself” on Bristol Palin’s new reality show. Michele still needs a map to find Lexington and Concord, and anyway shouldn’t she be at home with her 10,000 kids? Now that Obama’s killed Osama, Rudy seems like Encino Man, and I’m still not clear on who the Chinese guy is, except that we really, really want you to nominate him.

Which brings us to Mitch Daniels.

Don’t get me wrong — just like some of you, I’m jazzed about Mitch. Who wouldn’t be? Colorless, diffident, weird, a homunculus with hair that former frontrunner Donald Trump probably secretly envies since there’s so little of it, Daniels is the perfect puss of the Republican party in this year of our Common Era, 2011. Let’s celebrate his diverse qualifications:

● He’s from Indiana, a state with as politically incorrect a name as can be imagined. I mean, why don’t they just call it Redskinland and be done with it? Indiana is like Delaware writ a tiny bit larger, one of those states you couldn’t pick out of a police lineup if it mugged you and got arrested at the scene by Ohio and Illinois. Half of it’s a suburb of Obama, Tony Rezko, and Bill Ayers’s neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago, for crying out loud. Not that there’s anything wrong with that!

● He’s basically an accountant. Nothing gets the political juices flowing and the passions boiling like a green-eyeshade guy solemnly warning the nation that a big hangover’s coming while the band’s still playing, the girls are dancing in their skivvies on the bar, and nobody’s called the cops yet. Sure, the teabaggers are all het up about the deficit and whatnot, but the rest of us love our entitlements and won’t hear a word against them. When one in seven of our fellow citizens is on food stamps, and half the population contributes a grand total of whiz-all in federal income taxes, we don’t call that a bug, we call it a feature! Free stuff for everybody, now and forever — that’s our winning campaign slogan, and if you don’t like it, try to come up with a better one.

● He’s . . . zzzzzzzzz. What? Sorry, fell asleep there for a sec. Fine now.

I know that some of you are sitting around waiting for a deus ex machina to descend from the sky and start singing a castrati aria. As you lie in bed hugging your pillow and ogling that dreamboat Glenn Beck at two in the morning, you start to fantasize about Mr. Right . . . and then a tall, dark, fat, and handsome Chris Christie emerges from the shadows like Fabio on the cover of a bodice-ripper and sweeps you off your feet, or your bum, or whatever, and into the perfumed night . . .

Well, let me let you in on a little secret — your beautiful dream is our worst nightmare. Except that we don’t see Christie as Fabio, we see him as another Italian, namely Tony Soprano. Unlike Mitt, Mitch, and the Diana-figure from The Shanghai Gesture, Chris Christie Superstar knows how to bring it; he would take the fight to Barry in a debate like Tony beating the bejesus out of the bartender at the Bada Bing club only, you know, with words and Pine Barren ’tude. Talk about a cheer moment — even those of us on the left who’ve had to swallow our formerly principled opposition to Gitmo, waterboarding, rendition, Special Ops, and, well, assassination in the interests of national solidarity might feel a thrill or two.

But the Fat Man says he ain’t running, nohow, no way. And I can respect that: When the Boss is one of your subjects, who wouldn’t want to be King of the Boardwalk? Nucky Johnson’s got nothing on Chris. Still, can you imagine a Christie/Allen West ticket — two cans of whup-ass in a one-can cubicle. Even Hillary ’12! couldn’t stand up to that.

So what are you poor slobs going to do? Who’s going to be the tomato can offering sham opposition to His Highness’s media-ordained second term in exchange for face-time emoluments down the line? Who’s going to be the designated patsy in the next Obama hagiography by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann? Who’s going to want to see his or her reputation trashed, the family dragged through the mud, the appearances on Morning Joe and Meet the Press at least temporarily halted? Whom will you find to cause Mika Brzezinski to sigh and roll her eyes prettily at the very mention of the unholy name? In short, who’s going to be the palooka?

Luckily, you’ve already got him, a candidate who’s tanned, rested, tested, and ready to lose. A man who’s seen both sides now, who’s experienced the E-ticket ride from the heights of media adulation to the depths of ignominious and disgraceful defeat and up again. A hero for our times, who’s fought back from the electoral disaster of 2008 to resume his rightful place among the Talking Heads Elect. The man to whom you owe absolutely nothing for your transient victories in the midterms. The man who, more than anybody else, gave us the glorious reign of the Emperor Hussein.

The man who never saw an aisle he didn’t want to reach across, even if he has to regenerate a new limb or two every few weeks. The fighter pilot with the common touch, who has so many houses, thanks to his rich second wife, that he can’t remember how many there are. A man of peace who never met a war he didn’t want to start, especially if we can bomb the bastards into submission without getting shot down. A man of such political bravery that he’s willing to attack his own side wherever and whenever it’s expedient. A man who takes a licking, likes it, and keeps on licking.

Ladies and gentlemen and Republicans, I give you John McCain.

Go ahead. You know you want to. It’s so much easier on all of us this way.

— As a Hollywood insider, David Kahane remains scrupulously nonpartisan in his politics: He votes for liberals and Democrats alike. You can sign on to DAVEPAC ’12 by writing to him at kahanenro@gmail.com or by abjectly begging him to be your illusory “friend” on Facebook, just as long as you shell out for your personal copy of Rules for Radical Conservatives. Proof of purchase required. Hey — it’s still a capitalist country, for the nonce.