Isn’t it rich?
Isn’t it queer?
Losing my timing this late
In my career?
And where are the clowns?
There ought to be clowns
Well, maybe next year
Stephen Sondheim

Monday morning there was a new email in our box. Actually, there were several, but this one was from the President of the United States of America, one Barack Obama. He was officially announcing his intent to run for a second term. As of writing, that makes Mr. Obama the one and only applicant for that job. If this country was a third world dictatorship, or one of the former, or even current communist regimes, that would be the end of it. Oh, there would be an election, but its outcome would be foreordained and that would be the end of it. But this is America, right? We have a democracy. There will be campaigns and competing candidates and at almost two years out from the 2012 election, its results are not a foregone conclusion, right?

Well, let’s look at the field. First, within the Democratic Party, Obama can expect a primary challenge, from, ah, hello, is anyone out there? Well, I guess not, but don’t worry; the Republicans have plenty of hopefuls. I’m sure that through their primary system, they will be able to nominate a strong challenger to Obama. Although none of the prospective Republicans have stepped into the race yet, many are standing around the pool and more than a few are toeing the water. So, without further adieu I give you my read on the Republican field.

The Donald, also know as Donald Trump fits the bill of this post’s title better than all of the rest of the field. I can just hear his campaign slogan now, “Barack Obama, you’re fired!” He has plenty of acumen; after all he is a successful businessman. That is, if you’re idea of business success is bankrupting a casino, a casino, where the house always wins. On foreign policy matters, his claim to fame is that he “screwed Gaddafi”. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but it may not play well with the moral majority.

Newt is back! Former Speaker of the House, the last man to have successfully shutdown the government and Mr. Family Values, Newt Gingrich is ready to run for President. Although, he left his wife for his aide, who he was screwing, while prosecuting Bill Clinton for screwing his intern, he has done the crying man routine and is now contrite, just ask his ex-wife.

Michele Bachmann, congresswoman from Minnesota and heir to Joe McCarty’s north woods wing-nut brand of politics is also a prospective candidate. She loves tea parties and even if she doesn’t know American history, she is a true blue American and doesn’t have to take any stinking citizenship test. Have I mentioned that she has eclipsed Sarah Palin?

Sarah was once the front-runner and is now no longer. I hope that she hangs in there though, because Tina Fey could always use the work. I just heard that Katie Couric was looking for work too, maybe they could do interviews?

I admit that I have gone after the seemingly weakest members of the Republican field, but at this stage in the 2008 election cycle you could have similarly tagged Barack Obama. Even if these easily derided candidates fall by the wayside, there are stronger ones, waiting in the aisles to take their places. After all, there are still 583 days until the 2012 election, so be patient.

Today is election day here and elsewhere across the country. The photo with this post shows George Bingham’s painting, The County Election. Bingham, a Missouri artists has captured small town electioneering in his storytelling of a painting. I photographed his painting at the Saint Louis Art Museum. Our election here is also a county election. We are electing our first county assessor, it was formally an appointed position. Anne will probably read this first, she is working the polls, as an election official today. By the time you early readers see this she will already be on duty. That is citizenship, the likes of which I’d like to see in the Republican field for the next presidential election.