“The year is 2019. The finest men in America don’t run for President. They run for their lives.”
– tagline for The Running Man
I follow the US elections like a sports season. Don’t tell me you don’t. It’s like the World Cup, the Superbowl, and War of the Worlds blended into one enormous polisci nerd’s wet dream. Fuck the Vince Lombardi trophy. The winner of this Grand Slam tournament gets to take home the presidency. Can it get any more high-stakes? Yeah, sometimes losers like Walter Mondale or Bob Dole run and ensure an uninteresting, one-sided election, devoid of drama. Not this time around. We are in for some serious smackdown shit. Moreover, this year’s Pennsylvania Avenue Derby is actually relevant.
The good folks at Pollster.com understand how to present things. Don’t tell me their map doesn’t get you going when all the states switch from one color to another. Following them swing back and forth is like watching an enormous, high-stakes, 300-million piece game of Risk. Having convinced myself of the absurdity of the electoral process (which is only one way to deal with coming of age during W’s presidency), I know which team I’m rooting for and watch the battle play itself out. I imagine this is part of the appeal of working for political machines. You get to feel like the dungeon master.
Let’s not forget the ultimate point of professional sports broadcasts: to entertain. CNN gets it. They understand that the Undecided Voter is in the minority – both in terms of the country as a whole, and in terms of their value as a viewer and consumer. They also know that the rest of us want to follow the horse race. We want gaffes to laugh at and verbal smackdowns (“lipstick on a pig,” etc.) to cheer for. We want to be involved, too, and news agencies are only too happy to oblige. Just remember: time spent objectively covering relevant issues such as AIG, interest rates, or housing foreclosures is time not spent updating your “Sarah Palin look-alike” cam. Once you know what team you’re rooting for, sit back and let the networks show you all the good, juicy bits. And then, you know, if your candidate wins and causes you believe in suddenly have a realistic chance of coming into being… well, I’m still hoping to find out what that feels like. It might make me have a little more faith in the American electorate.
Until then, I have found solace in the surprisingly prescient 1987 action flick The Running Man. Arnold Schwarzenegger plays Ben Richards, a wrongly convicted man forced to enter a public execution gauntlet staged as a TV game show. Schwarzenegger survives the waves of gladiators thrown at him, and by the film’s end confronts Captain Freedom – played by former Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura. After a deadly battle, Richards finally defeats Captain Freedom and achieves his freedom. Afterwards, Schwarzenegger went on to become California governor and Ventura ran Minnesota. This is how awesome politics are in America.
I’m still rooting for Ben Richards to knock Captain Freedom off his post. At least I know the American media will try to make it exciting. They help flesh out the final facet of our elections: politics as comic book. The most classic American prose medium. From an entertainment standpoint, at least, there’s not really that big a difference between this…
and this:
French Augmented Sixths 