Slate recently pointed out that Senator Hillary Clinton has some things in common with Tracy Flick, the protagonist of Election. But who do the other '08 candidates remind us of?

RUDY GIULIANI is Judge Doom from Who Framed Roger Rabbit: a balding, bespectacled man who worked in law enforcement in the ‘80s, inspired fear in millions, and surrounded himself with weasels.

BARACK OBAMA is Peter Pan: Rival campaigns claim that Obama’s high-minded promises of “hope” and “change” instill “false hopes” in voters, but the youthful senator is not afraid to think “wonderful thoughts,” and hope that his campaign takes flight just like the hero of this "fairy tale."

MITT ROMNEY is Gordon Gekko from Wall Street: Eager to show off his business experience as global stock markets continue to plummet, the former CEO is touting his management background and extolling his personal fortune. He will also say anything to win. “Greed is good”? What do the focus groups say?



JOHN MCCAIN is Popeye: McCain spent last summer headed for disaster: He flopped in the polls, lacked in donations, and was widely considered a sad, beaten old man. But the grizzled Navy vet has enjoyed a boost of last-minute strength: Victories in New Hampshire and South Carolina. If a single phrase sums up McCain, whether you like him or not, it’s “I am what I am." (This comparison has been noted elsewhere).



JOHN EDWARDS is Atticus Finch: Those legal chops. That southern voice. The strident progressive outlook. The hair. Why, it's none other than the hero of To Kill a Mockingbird. Isn't he lovely?



RON PAUL is Dale Gribble from King of the Hill. As a gun-loving libertarian with a Texan accent, Paul has quite a bit in common with this fictional redneck. Heck, Gribble is a hysterical conspiracy nut, and a good number of Paul supporters are 9/11 Truthers.




MIKE HUCKABEE is Dewey Cox from Walk Hard : With his rock star aspirations, friendly blank stare and deep southern drawl, the former Arkansas governor reminds us of this Alabama golden boy.

DENNIS KUCINICH is Rick Moranis: Kucinich has much in common with the Rick Moranis character from the 1993 music video “Tomorrow’s Girls.” They are both perceived as geeks, they both score with women who are out of their leagues, and both have spotted a UFO. The resemblance is out of this world.

Barack Obama: He has 99 problems, bitch ain't one.On the Left: Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have called a ceasefire over the race issue. Hillary had previously said that Martin Luther King, Jr. wouldn't have accomplished his goals without President Lyndon Johnson, who was (get this!) white. Hillary's staffers accused Obama's campaign of distorting her remarks. Former President Bill Clinton described Obama's supposed superior judgment on Iraq as a "fairy tale," and many African-Americans felt that Clinton was referring to the notion of a black president -- which isn't crazy considering that a Clinton aide described Obama as voters' "imaginary hip black friend." Meanwhile, Obama entered a rally accompanied by the lyrics: "I got 99 problems but a bitch ain't one." The political guru Dick Morris, occasional toe-suckler (seriously, how the fuck does this guy have a career?), argues that John Edwards should end his candidacy like Bill Richardson, so that he might boost Obama's chances of winning the nomination. Another hopeless candidate, Dennis Kucinich, won his lawsuit to appear in tonight's debate. (Kucinich is fun, but he can't rock a mic like Mike Gravel.)

This week's winner: Clinton -- but she's playing dirty.

On the Right: Rudy Giuliani is in T-R-O-U-B-L-E. The former New York mayor is unable to stay ahead of John McCain in the polls and can't afford to pay his own staffers. Ron Paul is dead. Mitt Romney, who has money to spare (you sure save a lot of cash when you never purchase booze or pornography), is investing heavily in TV advertisements to regain his status as front runner. (A Mormon president? Isn't that kind of a fairy tale?) Mike Huckabee pandered to pro-lifers in South Carolina by visiting a "pregnancy counseling center." He also proclaimed that wives should "submit" to their husbands, and wouldn't answer whether he believes that only Christians go to heaven. But he has God's digits, so he should know.

This week's winner: McCain -- but his comeback is very fragile, and he looks awful.

Here's the backstory: NBC came up with a set of criteria for admission to the Democratic debate in Nevada tomorrow that they hoped would exclude the lovable little gremlin. Unfortunately for them, he qualified. So, naturally, NBC changed the criteria to ones Kucinich couldn't meet, and disinvited him.

Well, Kucinich took his case to court and won. So tomorrow night, in addition to Obama's audacious hope, Clinton's audacious sense of entitlement, and Edwards' audacious egomania in staying in the race, we can expect a few entertaining sermons on "the rejection of war as an instrument of policy" --- because wars are better fought without any policy goals in mind.

I was all set to blog about this unbelievably insipid WaPo profile of Dennis Kucinich's unbelievably attractive wife, when, wouldn't you know it, New York mag's Michael Idov beat me to it.

If you've got ten minutes to spare, trudge your way through the warrens of puff-piece cliche about a homely non-starter candidate and the gorgeous New Age-y soul that binds him to his Elle cover model wifey. Or, if you've got five seconds to spare, read this:

Enough of this, seriously. The only reason Kucinich isn’t a viable candidate — in the Perot-of-the-left sense — is the media’s across-the-board insistence on depicting him as a woodland creature. As a culture, we love the underdog but hate the hangdog — as soon as somebody doesn’t look like a winner, we gang up and cull him from the herd. Highlighting Kucinich’s wife’s looks is, oddly enough, just another way of humiliating him, and everyone from the far right to The Daily Show is equally culpable. Somehow the fact that this guy was mayor of Cleveland at 31 tends to be forgotten. Our mayor is five-feet-seven too, and no one other than Diane Sawyer has a problem with that. Then again, billions of dollars tend to add an invisible couple of inches wherever inches can be added.

In the bullying media's defense, Jerry Springer was mayor of Cleveland* once, and who cares at how old?

* No, he wasn't. Cincinnati. 

DFLP: Ahmad Jibril, left, and Naif Hawatmeh, head of Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

• House votes 223-201 to withdraw troops from Iraq by next spring. [The Huffington Post]
• DFLP leader could enter West Bank for the first time since the Six Day War. [The Jerusalem Post]
• With GOP defections, many Republicans calling for withdrawal. [The Week Magazine]
• What atheists and theists can and can't agree on. [The Washington Post]
• Hillary Clinton and John Edwards talk of paring down debates to only "serious" candidates. [WLUC]
• Kucinich pissed that Hillary and John in cahoots. [Yahoo]
• Celebs, like hot rod Mr. Kilmer, who can't seem to keep their girlish figures. [TMZ]