Mike Corrigan

By Mike Corrigan

BN Columnist

As a candidate for the Republican nomination for president in 2016, I pledge that I will not run any campaign advertising until this summer, at the earliest.

I’m a little tired of political ads myself, I don't know whom to attack yet, and the commercial slots can now be taken up in pitching something more advantageous to America’s long-term mental and physical health, like whatever life-saving gadget Ron Popeil invented last night (“Amazing! — it fishes for you, guts it and fries it! Then it eats the mercury-saturated fish for you! Then it gets cancer for you!”)

Despite rampant speculation about my candidacy, rumors that I will term “ridiculous” and “premature” when questioned by the press, I have not yet chosen a running mate. I will announce his or her name after the Primaries — they’re only three years away! Can’t wait! — but this does leave some dead time for things to sort themselves out. Because of the way the 2012 election went, rumors have it that I would consider a Latin running mate with proven ability as a “decider,” but JLo is so wrapped up in her own career, I don’t think she’d be interested, and anyway she would have to take a big pay cut.

And for you whippersnappers questioning my age, let me just say I am younger than John McCain (sure, okay, everyone is). Besides, age is no detriment: I’m a grizzled white man, and thus a GOP cliche: Gray, Old, Pale — the very image of my party! But that’s why I know my veep choice will be so important, an emphatic nod to diversity. I may draft a Kenyan. As I said, we’ll cross that bridge before I burn it, unlike some people.

Also, unlike some people, I have proposed an actual agenda for 2016, after both parties get through wrecking the country by refusing to compromise on anything, despite the fact that half the people yell from one side of every issue and the other half stand, shaking their fists, and an occasional marimba, on the other side, threatening to secede if they don’t get their way.

This last election cycle, everyone was so busy telling us of the horrors that the other team would inflict on America, they forgot to tell us what they would do specifically about things like creating more jobs, reducing health costs, negotiating the chimerical fiscal cliff, cutting the federal deficit, narrowing the trade deficit, fixing the economy, avoiding the not-so-chimerical energy cliff, dealing with climate change, limiting nuclear weapons, repairing the safety net, somehow terminating this recent ridiculous spate of 3-D movies we’ve had lately, and saving the middle class. Just. Only.

Oh, the two major party candidates mumbled something under their breaths now and again this past fall, and you kind of got an idea they had a clue there was a problem someplace, but you never really knew. And no one asked them! The press was too busy trying to determine who was ahead now — no, now; no, now — how about now? — to ever worry about the boring technical stuff, like issues or positions. The press wondered what we thought; they didn’t think of asking a penetrating question of the candidates so that anyone could tell what they thought, and in that way allow us voters to make up our minds about what we thought. It was politics as usual.

I won’t wait to be asked, in 2016. The major tenet of my platform, so far, is an uber-conservative position: expand Obamacare into national Medicare! Sure, single-payer health care in the past hasn't been seen as a conservative position, but I am not a typical conservative candidate. I have learned the lessons of 2012. I am the future.

Single-payer is the obvious choice for both sides of the aisle, plus the aisle itself. Listen: America has the most expensive medical care delivery system in the world — it isn’t even close — yet we see medical outcomes depressingly trailing many other cheaper models, including, I don’t know, Swaziland’s maybe? Clearly, we have to chop costs and improve results. I say we cut out the middleman, the private health insurers, and in one swift excision our national medical costs will go from 17% of GDP to about 12% of GDP! They are taking half a trillion dollars a year out of the health care system — for shuffling paper! Why have the cost cutters in the Republican party and the run-government-more-like-a-business enthusiasts not thought of this before? Even if I don’t win, I hope to garner enough support in the Primaries to get national health care into the Republican platform for 2016. It's time, my fellow saurians!

I have other plans too, of course, but you just read more specific policy in the last two paragraphs than Obama and Romney together gave you in several years of “campaigning.” Despite this openness, according to my private polling service, as of yesterday I trail seven other announced candidates, though for some reason I am leading in Florida. Yes! Corrigan in 2016! In the national polls, at least I have forged ahead of Donald Trump. Everybody has, of course.