Politicians are like diapers. They both need changing regularly and for the same reason." (Author unknown )

By now, most Americans have plumbed the depths of America's cash&carry political jabberwocky, while seeing the futility of placing one's beliefs in the hands of party hacks and power thirsty robots in three piece suits. But here we are, staring down the tunnel of yet another episode of televised hokum parading under the guise of a New Dawn. Step right up, as the Hope and Change Theater presents: "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World."

Never mind what our pedestrian media passes off as politics; the entrails of our political beast are littered with so much 20th Century detritus as to be literally full of shit. One can only wonder at what the Founders of our country would say at the mangled mess that now spreads across the fruited plains: Political bingo, voting for dollars, the slime leading the blind.

So, as we enter the newest incarnation of what is increasingly a one dimensional culture, let's ask ourselves if the two wonks seeking the reins of the world's grandest experiment actually seem worth a chaw of bubblegum. Keeping in mind that every bubble's destiny is to pop.

This just in from our friends at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health - "Most adults in the U.S. will be overweight or obese by 2030, with related health care spending projected to be as much as $956.9 billion…." While over at the BBC, we learn that, "One in three Americans born in the year 2000 will develop diabetes…" Quaint, eh?

Mass-diabetic juju is creeping down the Avenue of the Weird, spinning America into one hell of a medical quagmire, all thanks to our zest for the Good Life. You have to wonder what's good about a life that ends with insulin shots from the back seat of a wheel chair.

$956.9 billion bucks worth of sugar, fat, and television: Free health care suddenly doesn't seem so free.

Nobody running for President today will touch this mess.

Which brings us to a fun topic on every voter's nimble mind: America's Standard of Living. That is, assuming we haven't been collectively anesthetized by more important current events, such as how much Angelina's baby pictures sold for. And who could forget the rumors of Madonna's d.i.v.o.r.c.e. from what's his name? Alas, so much news and so little time!

What is this nebulous standard of living we defend so ardently? Is fast food that exciting? Or SUVs, House reruns, tabloid journalism, hip hop, flip flops, tanning booths, hair implants, botox injections, death-by-potato-chips, sub-prime mortgages, ad infinitum? What has American culture become? If "too big to fail" sounds to you like a slogan in need of a hand grenade, you're not alone.

Nobody running for President today will touch this mess.

We know from semi-reliable news sources that Americans are falling behind in basic educational skills (math, science; like, uh … geography). How do we think the Shining City Upon a Hill is going to survive intact as our industrialized, highly motivated global neighbors maneuver their way onto the fat end of the Monopoly Board?

How does a nation compete in a global economy when its biggest export is debt? What will America look like after various foreign oil syndicates get through snatching up our portfolio of foreclosed McMansions? Where do we send the mortgage check? Hola! This Bud's for you, dude.

Take your pick: Hope and change, or maverick conservatism. It all smacks of mega-million dollar baloney. Somebody pull the plug before the proverbial chickens come home to roost and bring the bird flu with them!

Nobody running for President today will touch this mess.

The latest word in technology is that America's kids seriously dislike to read. Staring at handheld cyber-units for hours on end, text messaging each other like ants in a sizzling skillet, is not reading. We're talking literature. The stuff the over-40 crowd grew up on: Carefully crafted ideas; holographic feedback loops inside the reader's noggin. Of course, it's hard to make sense of Charles Dickens when your attention span covers all of two seconds. Better to stick with the latest incarnation of Guitar Hero than subject a hapless young Ritalin-infused brain to the tortures of Ralph W. Emerson. "Where's Waldo?"

It's questionable what America's current crop of kids will offer our rapidly industrializing hothouse world in the coming decades. A generation of vapid cyber-freaks may turn out to be about as useful as a jar of trans fat. Then what? If you hear the sound of marching jackboots in step with the creaky wheels of Big Brother's motorcade, you're not hallucinating. Ahoy, comrades: ______ (fill in the blank) will save you!

Nobody running for President today will touch this mess.

Let's be honest, since we can. Look around at the craziness creeping through the collective consciousness of Homo erectus asphaltus. Then ponder this simple question: Who in hell would be stupid enough to want to be President of the United States?

Alas, when the next victim of our political burlesque takes the oath and assumes leadership of the free world, the macabre reality of the job will suddenly loom into view, possibly in the guise of an ogre with a suitcase full of weapons of mass destruction. By then, all bets are off. Promises of hope and change will quickly fade into the blogfog of history, a footnote in the annals of prime time news blips.

Would you seriously consider taking the helm of the world's most narcissistic game show? If you answered "yes" to that question, you might want to jump in the nearest washing machine and run yourself through the rinse cycle a couple of times. On the Green-energy setting, of course. (Kids - do as I do, not as I say).

The idea of being the Leader of the Free World is about as appealing as a salmonella sandwich with a side of botulism. Even in the best of times, assuming responsibility for 300 million strangers is glaringly masochistic. Or worse: A martyr complex. And we all know what happens to martyrs - they end up like Kirk Douglas in Spartacus.

No, smart folks simply remain anonymous and shun politics, power, and punditry like the plague. Because those who want power the most, deserve it the least. And those who gain the most power are those most likely to succumb to power's lascivious stranglehold.

Political platitudes aside, this year's Presidential election is a show of wilted ideologies, the candidates pitted against each other in a vain attempt to appear on the outside of the asylum. The fact that it costs hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars to buy one's way into the White House should frighten even the most hardened political junky. But hope, change, and patriotism sell in the Blogosphere. YouTube or bust!

Nobody running for President today will touch this mess.

2008 is the Year of the Earth Rat in the Chinese calendar. An apt description for the political morass we find ourselves in as the Great Election Cycle crashes into itself in front of the All Seeing TV Eye. The Earth Rat cometh! And where you find one rat, there are colonies of rodents in tow, their greedy paws picking through the bureaucratic crumbs of the American Dream.

In the final analysis, will we mortgage our souls for a standard of living that is neither sustainable, nor satisfying? Vote for the candidate who most reflects the image of our own discontent? Do we feel empowered by the freedom to choose between two talking heads we barely know beyond the sound bites and hot dog photographs?

Of course, there's always the outside chance that the recently discovered puddle of water on Mars will turn out to harbor freaky little critters more intelligent than ourselves. And, in the nick of time, these aliens will point our species towards a more harmonious existence, not only with each other; but with that elusive shard of awareness we call our self.

Until then, Redneck Taoists unite! Turn off the television and do something productive with a bottle of tequila. Take a day off from work and go skinny dipping. Make love to your significant other like you really mean it. Refuse to lend your brain waves to the sordid malarkey parading as politics in the nation's collective psycho-underbelly. It's never too late to step off the merry-go-round. Whatever your issues, nobody running for President today will touch this mess.

With that in mind, I make my final pronouncement on the subject of 2008's run for the Big Job: Whoever wins the keys to the White House will actually be the loser of the race, at least in the cosmic sense of the word.

But, as the wise man said, "This too shall pass."