"Not Just Another Pretty Face!"

When I was a boy, we all sat in front of the television every year to watch the “Miss America Beauty Pageant”. I remember the strains of “There she is, Miss America” from the velvet throat of Bert Parks, as the winner walked down the long runway with her crown and bouquet of flower, tears of joy running down her face. America has an ongoing love affair with beauty contests. We have “Miss America”, “Miss Teen America”, “Mrs. America”, “Miss Universe”; we even have local contests for crowns like “Miss Coles County” and “Miss Illinois”. Every state in the union sends somebody to the Miss America contest; we all believe we have the most beautiful, intelligent and talented young ladies in our nation.

Several years ago there was a show called “The $1.98 Beauty Show” that was produced by Chuck Barris, who also produced the “Gong Show”. The “$1.98 Beauty Show” was a satire of all beauty contests, and it was very funny. The show featured questions and personal information about each of the prospective winners by a panel of celebrities, who poked as much fun as they could toward each contestant. The host was Rip Taylor, the flamboyant comedian. The winner was given a plastic crown and a bouquet of “rotten vegetables”; Rip would use a coin changer on his belt to award the contestant their $1.98. This show was always good for a laugh.

Every four years we have our own “political” beauty contest, as we see all of the potential candidates “parade around” America, giving speeches and engaging in debates with each other. This is the most important “beauty contest” Americans can watch. The Democrats aren’t having much of a contest this year, as they have Barack Obama already picked as their winner, barring some upstart challenging him (he would probably be called a racist). The Republicans have had a thinning of the herd since the start of the “contest”, and we can probably call this phase the semi-finalists. We have Mitt Romney, who now leads the pack, with Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Rick Perry and Ron Paul filling out the rest of the field. Herman Cain, Tim Pawlenty, Michelle Bachmann and Jon Huntsman have all fallen by the wayside. Instead of a panel of comedians questioning the candidates, they have chosen to rend their own flesh, with questions meant to destroy the chances of their opponents. I’m sure Barack Obama is quite happy at the feeding frenzy which is now going on between his potential foes.

The big problem here is that this is no joking matter. It doesn’t matter who looks the best on camera or in a bathing suit, or who can sing the best song: the winner of this “beauty contest” will be challenging Barack Obama for the leadership of the United States of America. If successful, the winner won’t receive a bouquet or crown. It will be a lot more like that bunch of “rotten vegetables”; high unemployment, low economic growth, huge debt and weak foreign policy, and it will all be laid in his lap. Perhaps he can use the excuse that “I got this mess from Barack Obama”!