Stephen Colbert, President of the United States. It has a nice ring to it. The ring of… inevitability. It rolls easily off the tongue, and it just may be a possibility. I understand that right now Mr. Colbert (coming here Friday to campaign, I mean, perform) is running only in the South Carolina primaries — on both tickets no less. Admittedly, one state does not a presidential campaign make, but with an impending Writer’s Guild strike looming, there is a real possibility that The Colbert Report could be brought to a halt, leaving Stephen Colbert with plenty of time on his hands to expand his reach to states near and far.
While I’m no political expert, dime-store punditry seems to be all the rage lately and I happen to be an excellent dime-store pundit. My take on the political landscape is that he’s got South Carolina in the bag, and while it may be too late to make a dent in Iowa or New Hampshire, who needs those states? They suck. What’s important is that he could win New York easily, especially if Jon Stewart campaigns for him. And as the saying goes, “As New York goes, so goes the nation” (I’m not sure if there’s any such saying, but if I said it it’s good enough for me).
Now that we’ve established that Stephen Colbert is all but a shoo-in for President, I ought to add that, other than his can’t-lose candidacy, I don’t know much about him and I aim to keep it that way. In fact, I think he’d prefer it that way. I don’t need facts to make my decisions. Like him, I go with my gut, and my gut tells me he’s the way to go for our country. After all, he’s a succesful TV show host. Presidents have been elected on less than that. Furthermore, he was an Eagle Scout, fought seven tours in Vietnam, won the National Cabbage Eating Championship two years running, completed the New York City Marathon in three hours and moonwalked for two of those hours. Finally, he has maintained a clear and consistent anti-bear agenda (no flip-flopping there!). Just to be clear, I don’t know any of these things, I feel them and that’s even better than knowing because no one can contradict you.
Why shouldn’t he be president? After all, Mitt Romney’s whole campaign is based on the fact that he looks like a President. I don’t know about the rest of you, but when I turn on Comedy Central at 11:30 every Monday through Thursday, I don’t see Stephen Colbert, TV personality and comedian, I see Stephen Colbert, President of the United States. If looks aren’t enough for you people, just listen to his decisive, spirited rhetoric on Meet The Press earlier this week. When aked why he’d entered the race, Mr. Colbert said “Because I think our country is facing unprecedented challenges in the future. And I think that the junctures that we face are both critical and unforeseen, and the real challenge is how we will respond to these junctures, be they unprecedented or unforeseen, or, God help us, critical.” Those words may be the most incisive and honest political speech of the this year. If he can do that with the English language, imagine what he can do with our federal budget.
Now that I’ve proved that he can and will win the presidential election it’s time to show that Stephen Colbert deserves to win the Presidency of the United States. But, to make one final point, let’s take a final look at the demographics. On theatlantic.com there’s an article by Joshua Green in which he analyzes almost-President Colbert’s chances of success. Using the Nielsen ratings as his guide he finds that “Colbert’s viewers tend to be young, white, educated and male … So far this year, he’s drawn a nightly audience that averages 1.3 million viewers nationwide, [more than half of whom are in] the same demographic targeted by beer marketers: men ages 18 to 34 who are ‘above-average consumers of adult beverages.’”
Before I continue, I’d like to offer a hearty congratulations to men ages 18 to 34. Someone has to compensate for all those women, children and teetotalers who aren’t pulling their weight in beer consumption. Second, and more importantly, let’s inspect these statistics more closely: people who like Stephen Colbert like beer. In fact, they like beer so much that they drink more of it than almost any other group. And, as we all know, beer is awesome. Now, I’m not a logician (not yet, anyway!), but I’m pretty sure this means that — if we think this over logically — Stephen Colbert is awesome!
In conclusion, not only will Stephen Colbert win the South Carolina and New York primaries, he is a top-notch political thinker, and people who like beer also like him! That’s enough for me. I know who I’m voting for in New York’s primary elections. When Stephen Colbert shows up Friday at Cornell, why don’t you let him know he’s got your support too?
Stephen Colbert will perform this Friday in Barton Hall at 7 p.m. and again at 9 p.m.