Dateline: Late July 2020

In a Presidential race that has seen each of the five major party candidates enjoy a five to ten point lead--only to see it evaporate and switch with each successive scandal--the choice of running mate has become crucial. Because current President Sam Fine 2.4367 is a sentient computer, he is only eligible for one term in the highest office. As his running mate, a quaint and often mis-quoted TRS-80 named "Roxy" by his friends programmers, has been in a terminal loop since early in Fine's term, the race is wide open.

For the resurgent Democrat Danny "Balamme" Shultz, a 49-year-old professional skateboarder turned political pundit, support outside his native California is desperately needed. Many have thought that he would hook up with long time friend, and fellow sidewalk surfer, Rick "The Stick" Delano. But Delano has been openly criticized for making friends--male and female alike--address him by his obviously phallic nickname. Other reports have said that Delano proposed running on the tagline "The more you blow the more you know," a slogan that would fly in the face of Shultz's non-hard drug stance. This apparently has shaken the inner sanctum of the Democratic party's best hope to get in the White House since their stunning defeat eight years ago. With the Democratic convention only three weeks away, one must wonder how much turmoil and frat boy hijinks this party can stand without total collapse.

The once mighty Republican party, which inexplicably put all of its money and media weight behind the embalmed corpse of Bob Dole for the third consecutive presidential race, is looking for a little life to offset the experience the long-dead statesman and Viagra spokesman from Kansas brings to the table. Colin Powell, who long ago renounced his Republican Party affiliation with the glib line, "Wait a minute, I'm black, what the hell am I thinking?" is on the short list, along with the usual suspects: Bob Dole's signature pen (which was flown to Nebraska earlier this week to change its voting registration from Kansas to the state it was manufactured), Newt Gingrich's liposuctioned fat and accompanying hair piece (emancipated from the "new" Newt a few years ago after custody issues about a large industrial-sized refrigerator), and the sacred soil of West Texas (which helped bring about the so called "hot and humid" accord between Canada and Quebec last year).

When the Republicans pushed through the Sentient Being Emancipation Proclamation fifteen years ago, no one realized that it would signal such a revolution in politics. Never before had a dead man ever gotten more than three percent in a national election, but last election Bob Dole's Corpse got 23 percent--way ahead of such has-beens as the Gore Sisters (topped out at 18 percent) and Britney Spears (five percent).

It's the upstart Entertaining America Party that holds a commanding lead this year. Four years ago it was merely a vanity party for disgruntled celebrities and their stalkers, but this year the long-time box office couple of Richard Gere and Julia Roberts have been taken seriously by voters. Holding a majority in the polls with 36 percent of the vote, Entertaining America seized on the opportunity of pairing Hollywood Has-Beens in a delightful package that has touched many demographics. Because the ticket was announced already paired up, there are no vice presidential questions here. The only thing they have to worry about is box office burnout. Sure we like them now, but what happens when the summer is over and all of those Oscar worthy films come out? Will we still care about the once-Pretty Woman and her rich john?

The Reform Party is still propping up the ghosts of Ross Perot and Jesse Ventura (both died mysteriously in the summer of 2003--although many attribute Ventura's death to excessive steroid usage during his wrestling career). Many have come to challenge the legitimacy of ethereal candidates and most of the voters have once again turned their backs on real reform.

This party, over-wrought by stupidity and incompetence, has never recovered from Pat Buchanan who, after getting only one percent in 2000, announced that the Reform Party was changing its name to the Picket Fences Party and that he would do everything in his power to build an impenetrable fence around the continental United States ("Screw Alaska and those damn Hawaiians" he was heard to remark. "No one likes them anyway."). Shortly after he was arrested in a Wyoming brothel handcuffed and ball-gagged to a late 19th century wooden bed and then disappeared from the public eye.

And the Green Party, always stressing consistency over everything else, once again nominated Ralph Nader and his customary pick of a no-name female ACLU lawyer running mate (this year's model, Susan Sisneck of Ohio). Nader is campaigning hard against the merger of AOL-Time Warner-Disney with AT&T--a merger already approved by the Feds. The merger, largest in the history of the world (worth approximately 2.5 gazillion dollars), is expected to be completed in October. Stock of both companies had been floundering until it was recently revealed that the company would control approximately 38 percent of the entire United States economy in 2021.

Nader, who is also fighting to put the dismantled anti-trust laws (struck from the books in late 2012) back on the books. Nader is holding his customary 8 percent in polls--but of those 8 percent, only 25 percent are expected to vote (the Green Party blames apathy and Internet addiction, even though voting over the Internet has been legal for almost 16 years).

So it's anyone's guess as to how the VP sweepstakes and accompanying November election comes out this year. Me, well, I'm gonna go for Nader. Just because I've been living off my AOL-Time Warner-Disney stock for the last 15 years doesn't mean I don't have deep-seated values I believe in to my very core.

Matt Worley is sometimes subject to flights of fantasy.