I SENSE THE VICE PRESIDENCY SLIPPING AWAY

Earlier this year I began my campaign for the Vice Presidency of The United States, figuring; who better than me? I have the perfect absence of credentials to be Vice President and a complete lack of interest in whatever cockamamie programs the president wants to implement. This nation grew to greatness with a long and undistinguished tradition of anonymous Vice Presidents with very little to do and less to say. No president wants to hampered by having an understudy who actively campaigned for the Presidency himself during the fight for the nomination, some guy who's convinced he could do the big job a whole lot better.

I harbor no such illusions, nor am I remotely interested in the nuts and bolts operation of government. There's hundreds of thousands of dedicated Federal employees doing whatever the hell it is they do just fine without me putting in my two cents worth. No, I had my eye on the sweet salary, the pension and the unbelievable perks that come with the job. You get your own jumbo jet, a huge staff to assist you in doing squat, bodyguards to order around, a mansion to live in, an unlimited expense account and practically no actual work to do. Nothing there not to love with every fiber of your being. And on top of all that, being a do-nothing Vice President is in the best patriotic traditions of our great nation. A better match-up of man and (no show) job never happened!

Now word comes down from the Democratic nominee and likely next President of the United States Barack Obama that he has formed a committee to vet a short list of Vice Presidential prospects. Guess who's got something in common with that pants-suited wunderkind Hillary Clinton? Bingo, yours truly! Neither one of us is anywhere near the top of that list. Indeed, in what one can only assume to be a monumental paperwork snafu, they seem to have omitted my name altogether, thus depriving the nation of a truly gifted Vice President. Dang! And I could almost taste it, throwing out the first ball at the World Series, wining and dining foreign dignitaries in wherever they felt like flying in my jet, skinny dipping in the Vice Presidential swimming pool with my attractive young personal assistants. I still say committees are places where great ideas go to die. These bozos think the job is on the level!

Do they even know what the Vice President does for a living? Have they checked out the United States Constitution lately? It says right there in black and white that the President is in charge of the Executive Branch of government, appoints Cabinet Secretaries, nominates Supreme Court judges, runs the nation's foreign policy, formulates a domestic agenda for his administration and is the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces. Alone, solo, single-handed. The Vice President, on the other hand, dresses in a suit, and that's pretty much it. Of course sometimes he entertains small potatoes dignitaries, travels the world compiling fact-finding reports no one ever reads and once in a very great while casts the deciding vote in the Senate in the event of a tie, and even then only casts the vote his president tells him to. Which is good thing, the Senate vote instructions, since I would be completely unfamiliar with any issues arising from the passage or non-passage of whatever nonsense law was being introduced. I'd be all "Yeah, fine, Prez, whatever..." Damned committees!

But you'd think Obama would see the wisdom of selecting me to be his running mate. He's plenty young and healthy enough to serve four, or even eight years without my help. Doesn't he deserve to be able to do his job without his Vice President looking over his shoulder all the time and telling him I told you so when something doesn't work out? It wasn't me who crisscrossed the nation for a year and a half telling anyone who would sit still that he's too young, inexperienced and naive and not ready to lead. Heck, I'd have been the guy who agrees with everything he says in order to get us elected this November. What do I care what he promises the nation? He's the one who's got to deliver, not me. Nobody expects a damned thing from a Vice President and I'd deliver on those expectations and then some! I'd do everything I can to keep out of his way.

He could count on me to hop on Air Force 2 at the drop of a hat for an inspection of Brazil to make sure the beaches in Rio are in good shape, maybe hit Scandinavia for a good will tour with our women's volley ball team, see how they stack up against theirs, that sort of thing. When not on such non-vital missions, I'd be hanging around the Vice Presidential mansion, on call to come by and look good in a suit for the cameras while others do the talking. Hell, I'd even let the president blame stuff on me. What do I care? Nobody thinks too much of the VP anyway, so let the press blame me for whatever goes wrong. The pay is the same either way, like 300 large a year plus more perks than most kings.

Once he secured the nomination I realized that I wouldn't like to be Republican candidate John McCain's Vice President. Not out of any high-minded political scruples, mind you, but it's just that he's really old and sort of senile and doesn't seem likely to survive 4 years in the hardest job on earth. That would mean the Vice President steps in and nobody wants that, especially when it's me. I'd like it least of all. Who need the headache? This world is crazy and nobody wants to hear what I think of half the sad jokers running around out there masquerading as statesmen and making life miserable for everybody. Please! I'd just as soon nuke 'em as pretend to take them seriously. There's a reason why few Vice presidents have made decent Presidents. All of a sudden they go from the sporting life to being busier than a one armed piano player and it makes them pretty testy.

Fortunately for anyone who McCain picks to be his running mate, it's very unlikely he'll win the presidency. Anybody's who's witnessed his embarrassing campaign lately has to know he's been acting like Gramps with Alzheimer's lost in the mall, forgetting names and locations of nations, forgetting what he said last week and looking like he dare not stray too far from the men's room since the old kidneys aren't what they used to be. Some say he's still an improvement over Bush The Younger, who gets caught in mid-sentence searching for words like "the" and "what," but that's hardly a recommendation. There's a guy who started a damned war against the wrong nation! Woops! Not exactly a mistake you expect from the head guy.

And there is that unmistakable one-foot-in-the-grave look about John McCain lately. Who wants to be a heartbeat away from a guy with an irregular heartbeat? His Vice Presidential Search Committee must be administering rigorous physical exams along with the interviews, something they're probably thinking they should have thought of before the primaries began and they were stuck with a guy that calls Larry King "Junior" as their candidate. So it looks like I'm out of luck for my dream job. I just hope they don't pick some guy who's a workaholic or thinks he's going to "make a difference" or he's going to one unhappy dude and a constant irritation to the president. Who knows, with any luck he'll drop dead of sheer frustration and the nation will finally wake up and turn to me to do the job that takes no doing.