As JB points out, the new issue of includes Project White House, a chance for you to run for president of the United States. Turns out that you merely have to fill out a notarized nomination form to get on Arizona’s presidential primary in February, so we’re encouraging our readers to show that they’ve got fire in their belly. And if you’re a newsworthy candidate, we’ll even cover your campaign.

The grand prize in our foray into Reality Journalism: The coveted Tucson Weekly endorsement!

People of America, it’s now up to you.

This article appears in Nov 15-21, 2007.

Getting hassled by The Man Mild-mannered reporter

6 replies on “Run for President!”

  1. Pretty freaking cool. I like the way the article is full of footnotes that link (though for added effect the footnotes should link BACK to where they were originally linked from). I hope you get a lot of creative responses. You should distribute the Tucson Weekly at political-science classes and challenge U of A students to participate.

  2. Unfortunately, most UA students are too young to seek the presidency, although there’s nothing stopping them from running a campaign if they can find a patsy–er candidate who’s at least 35 years old.

  4. My platform for presidency:

    >>> Water conservation: The government installs free shower alarms in every house. You get to shower for 5 minutes. At 6 minutes, a speaker comes on in the shower and blares the sound that Jim Carrey makes in the van in “Dumb & Dumber”: BWAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!! The sound continues at top volume until you turn off the shower. For deaf people, a video screen projects a loop of Chris Farley dancing shirtless next to Patrick Swayze.

    >>> Illegal immigrants: Mexico will be annexed into the United States. The English and Spanish languages will be combined with a British Cockney accent to form Cocker Spanielsh. All Mexican immigrants will have citizenship but will have to receive an identifying tattoo of Herve Villechaize. They will also have to be able to dance “Tequila” on their toes or risk deportation to Detroit. Instead of building a fence along the border, we’ll build the world’s longest set of luminarias. The Virgin of Guadalupe will be replaced with the Whore of Sierra Vista. Chupacabra will be tamed and trained to do stupid pet tricks on Letterman and a new cuisine will emerge that combines the great taste of quesadilla hamburgers with the hunger-satisfying wallop of deep-fried, breaded jalapeno cheese sticks embedded with beef jerky.

    >>> Trade: I will decree that China directly import vials of powdered lead that can be ingested, snorted or mixed into milk for the chocolatey taste kids love best.

    >>> Corporate responsibility: Wal-Mart will be forced to pay its employees a living wage and only stock merchandise made in factories with stringent labor conditions and product-safety standards, meaning all Wal-Marts will close. In their empty shells we will build stadiums at which the government will host Academic Decathlon meets where all the well-informed kids will be awarded letter jackets and the esteem of their entire classes. The school’s jocks, who play football and baseball and do other abstract and meaningless things with their balls, will be properly marginalized while the kids who actually give two craps about knowledge and understanding will be celebrated and receive quality romantic attention from the most physically attractive students in their age group.

    >>> Fuel efficiency: SUVs will be retro-fitted with bicycle pedals and gears so that anybody owning a Ford Behemoth or a Dodge Depleter will have to self-propel until their enormous muffin-top guts and melon-shank asses are whittled down to a size that is not unsightly to all living creatures. New cars will have to get 80 mpg and be covered with solar panels, windmills, and flatulence converters. The most popular cars in the land will be the Chevy Biodegrader, the Ford Replenisher, and the Chrysler Mother Nature Cunnilinger. Also, “toilet to tap” will now become a reality, although it will be replaced with the even more direct “urethra to esophagus” slogan.

    >>> Education: It will be top priority from age 1 through 31. School will last 3 decades and then after a battery of tests, a required 2,000 hours of volunteer service, 3 years in the Peace Corps, and 24 weeks of watching the complete “Jeopardy” archives on a set of 500 DVDs, licenses will be issued that allow citizens to vote on electors who can then vote their conscience with the help of a robot named Sparky. Teachers will be the highest-paid profession, and every teacher will receive a monogrammed bathrobe and the chance to market their own line of designer protractors.

  5. Love it! And just think: You’ve got just as good a chance of winning the Arizona primary as Dennis Kucinich! Be sure to register with Project White House. And all you other lurkers: Let’s hear your platforms this week!

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