WITH ONLY a few days until the New Hampshire primary, I'm feeling intense pressure to choose a candidate. So far, none of the candidates meet all my requirements. Yes, Social Security, healthcare, and immigration are all important, but that's not what's going to get my vote. I have standards. And I won't decide until somebody meets them.
I need to know the candidate's positions on the issues that really matter. Like the Jamie Lynn Spears controversy. Laugh if you will, but, Dan Quayle cemented his place in history with his courageous stance on Murphy Brown's unwed pregnancy. So far, only one candidate has taken a position on this. Are the others cowards?
Is the candidate hiding pictures of our soldiers giving candy to Iraqi children? The e-mail "The Pictures THEY Don't Want You to See" completely changed my position on the war, and I urged the president to drop more bombs on the Iraqi people. Anyone responsible for keeping this from the American people does not deserve the presidency.
I can't vote for anyone whose ex-wives don't like him. I, personally, have warm and cordial relationships with every man who has dumped me. Once the restraining orders expired they were right back on my Christmas card list, where they remain today.
I want a president who is religious, but not too religious. Now that Mitt has detailed the tenets of the Mormon faith, I'm totally OK with it. After all, Marie Osmond is Mormon and she can dance. But now Mike Huckabee is on TV sending me subliminal Jesus messages with furniture. I'm afraid he might convert me and I'll be emptying my checking account for some televangelist. I just can't afford it. Sorry, Mike.
You can't be presidential if you don't have the right build. I'm sorry, how to put this delicately? I just can't get behind a big behind. If you can't bounce a quarter off it, you can't be my president. Some day the president may have to hide in an underground bunker, like Dick Cheney did during 9/11 and the Scooter Libby trial. If their posterior is too big, other people might not fit. If only Gisele Bundchen were American-born and eligible to run.
Credible celebrity endorsements always confuse me. Oprah is backing Obama while Maya Angelou is for Hillary. I'm in a real pickle over this. I've been peeved with Oprah ever since she yelled at her BFF, Gayle, on their cross-country road trip. I mean where would Oprah be without Gayle? Sorry, Barack, I might have to vote with Maya.
Regardless of NRA affiliation, I think presidential gun skills are critical. Have they ever shot anything larger than a squirrel outside of Bass Pro Sports? I never recognized this was important until Dick Cheney nearly killed someone. I'm certain Hillary has no gun skills because if she did, she'd be running as a widow. So that's another reason I can't vote for her.
I want a president who can "Play Misty For Me," and cry on demand. Not like Jerry Lewis at the telethon, or Ellen DeGeneres about the puppy. That would just be scary. Just tear up a bit like Mitt does when he remembers leaving poor Seamus on the roof during that 10-hour drive to Canada.
A president needs great hair, even if it involves plugs. A well executed comb-over is OK as long as it seems earnest. But the candidate's hair can't look TOO good. Mitt's hair makes me jealous because it always looks better than mine. John Edwards has good hair but I can't vote for anyone who spends more than a couple tanks of gas on styling. They need to think about their constituents and use a Flowbee or something once in a while.
I want a president with a good sense of humor. Even if that person has to wait a whole debate to use the bon mot someone else wrote. And, they can't have a grating laugh. It would just be too embarrassing every time Vladimir Putin cracked a joke. It would be all over YouTube in minutes.
So right now, I just don't know. Perhaps I'll be one of the network's election eve undecided voters who suddenly decides while the camera's running? But, it's three days to New Hampshire and I still don't have a clue.
Eileen McAvoy Boylen is a freelance writer.
