Why I'll Never be President

Among the reasons that I am never going to be elected to public office, up at the top would be that I inhaled. Often. Deeply. I liked it and I would inhale again if the right opportunity presented itself. If elected, I would do everything in my power to make inhaling legal, and I will inhale in the halls of power even if it’s not legal.

Another reason would be that I don’t think that I could claim to be a “hunter” with a straight face. I don’t enjoy killing animals. I hate it when I run over anything, even a frog. I don’t even like to kill bugs. You have to be microscopic before I will cease having scruples about killing you. Hunters seem more than a little creepy to me, especially the ones who shoot at fenced in animals released conveniently to be shot. I don’t advocate restrictions on hunting and hunters. I just don’t want any part of it, and I wouldn’t be able to don an orange vest and pretend that I was a hunter to score points with some slack jawed yahoos who reckon that you have to be a sadist to get their votes.

Maybe the hunting claims are back door ways of signaling support for the Second Amendment. “I not only support the right to bear arms: I exercise it on bunnies!” I support the Second Amendment. Period. I choose not to own firearms or to hunt, but I uphold the rights of others to own weapons and to hunt. I don’t have to plead the Fifth Amendment to show that I uphold it, so why should the Second Amendment be any different?

Or maybe the hunting claims are signals that the candidate is not a sissy boy. If so, it’s misguided. Some of the most dandified fops I have ever known were aficionados of the chase or avid fishermen. I would put my manliness up against the manliness of any man. I don’t need to kill a quail with clipped wings to show that I am masculine. If you’re so masculine, Shooty McQuailkiller, why don’t you strangle the quail and bite off its head? Sure, I’m squeamish about killing things and am afraid of some stuff, like spiders, and I wouldn’t get very far on Fear Factor, but that should in no way detract from my manliness and fitness for office. Alas, it does. That’s just the way it is. I am safe from having public office forced upon me.

Of course, if Mitt Romney can call himself a “hunter” based on his taking a few potshots at some vermin back in the day, then I am a “hunter” as well. The thing is, Mitt Romney is not, in fact, a “hunter” and neither am I. Neither is Dick Cheney.