Willy Trolove: Let death be no obstacle to electing the president

COMMENT

After months of waffle, spin, mangled rhetoric and US$1.5 billion of campaign spending, the American presidential election is lurching to its traditional conclusion - a dead-heat where the winner is decided by dodgy vote-counting and a couple of judges who owe Daddy a favour.

So now that Senator John Kerry and President George W. Bush are approaching the end of their long campaigns, I can finally reveal who I would vote for, assuming that I was allowed to vote and that I wasn't turned away at the polling booth because my name is similar to that of terrorist mastermind Willy Omar al Yusafat bin Trolovi.

You guessed it. I would vote for Thomas Jefferson. Now you may notice a flaw in my voting strategy. Thomas Jefferson is not a candidate. More importantly, he has been dead for almost 180 years.

Being dead is usually an obstacle to attaining political office, but this is not the case in the United States. In the 2000 federal election, John Ashcroft, who is now the US Attorney-General, was campaigning to hold on to his seat in the Senate, where he represented the state of Missouri.

His opponent was Mel Carnahan, the Missouri Governor. Ashcroft was comfortably ahead in the polls until, two weeks from the election, the Governor died.

Now you might think that dying is an unhelpful electoral tactic, but it didn't harm Governor Carnahan's campaign. Everyone said nice things about him and he surged ahead in the polls. The election came, the votes were counted, and the dead Governor was elected to the Senate.

And so, according to precedent, there's nothing to stop Thomas Jefferson campaigning for president.

His remains could be dug up and put on TV. Sure, they might not be overly telegenic in their present state of decay, but they could be glued together, given reverse liposuction, and touched up with plastic surgery. Any flaws could be smoothed out with the same kind of computer graphics that allowed The Lord of the Rings to go on and on for several hours longer than was needed.

Admittedly, Jefferson wouldn't be able to speak, but not speaking worked brilliantly for him the last time he ran for president. He was such a terrible orator that sometimes instead of speaking to voters, he just handed around copies of what he wanted to say.

His old speeches could be dusted off and handed around again. After all, the issues that Jefferson campaigned about back in 1804 are still relevant today - like freedom, justice and ballistic missile defence.

Even without speaking, he would have a huge advantage over Kerry and Bush because Jefferson was a remarkable man. He wrote most of the American Declaration of Independence, which includes some of the greatest words in the English language: "inalienable rights", "liberty" and "compulsory fingerprinting at international airports".

I am joking of course. In Jefferson's day, fingerprinting was voluntary at international airports.

And he made the Louisiana Purchase. This was the largest property acquisition in history. He had to take out a third mortgage on his home, buy all the land between the Mississippi and the Rocky Mountains, and hope like heck that interest rates didn't go up.

But the real reason I would vote for Thomas Jefferson is that he rode to his inauguration on his horse. Then, after being sworn in as President, he handed out copies of his speech, got back on his horse and rode home.

You can't imagine, say, John F. Kennedy doing something like that. Even so, President Kennedy was a great admirer of Jefferson. Once, while addressing a gathering of Nobel laureates, Kennedy said: "This is the most extraordinary collection of talent that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone."

Which is an impressive thing to say, especially when you'd rather be bonking the cocktail waitresses.

But why stop at Jefferson? American voters are desperate for choice. Why not dig up JFK and all the other dead presidents, and put them on the campaign trail?

Ronnie could call for more defence spending. LBJ could campaign for more invasions of sovereign states. Nixon could teach President Bush how to cheat and lie. Just think how interesting this presidential campaign would be if Washington, Lincoln and the Roosevelts were exhumed and reanimated, and ran for the White House.

Suddenly, the election would get exciting. Kerry and Bush would have to cut out the waffle and spin and start talking sense. The voters would have a real choice between candidates who are not alive and candidates who are just not very lively.

And, best of all, when the results came in, it would give a whole new meaning to a dead-heat.