While there are numerous reasons for me not to run for President of the United States, perhaps one of the strongest things holding me back is this:

The party’s rank and file want a candidate who is running, as the Dean slogan puts it, to take our country back. This is no time for a candidate who is running just because he thinks he deserves to be president. — Paul Krugman, “Who’s Nader Now?“, January 2, 2004 Op-Ed Column, The New York Times.

Krugman discusses one of the reasons the Democrats have lost control of the country: Their propensity for eating their own. Republicans won control because they don’t actually care who they elect — witness the pre-election of George “Dubya” Bush to the Presidency. (The actual election, of course, involved only nine voters; Bush won 5-4.)

For Hanukkah this year, my wife bought me the first season of Smallville on DVD. One thing I’ve learned from watching the DVDs is that Karl Rove is right: It’s easier to push through things that harm people if you do so from behind the scenes. All that’s really required is a pleasant face who either doesn’t care, is complicit, or doesn’t understand that he is being used. (Lex Luthor is a master at this, frequently working Rove-like, behind the scenes; the citizens of Smallville — like Americans for Karl — never realize they’ve become mere tools.) In the case of George Bush, those who really run the Republican party found all three elements of “doesn’t care, is complicit, and doesn’t understand” in one package.

There’s not all that much to like about Democrats, either. The only reason I usually support them is my oft-stated belief that:

When Republicans are in power, the entire country is screwed; when Democrats are in power, only interns are.

The point of my little aphorism is that Republican foibles typically involve money and power, while the foibles of Democrats are more personal, often centered on sex and power. (Even the vaunted John F. Kennedy was more interested in bedding starlets than in exploiting the American public in general.)

To get money, you have to have something to sell. Since Republicans don’t believe in providing services — except to one another and then only in the advancement of their common goals of accumulating money and power — they need to acquire valuable resources. They do this (cheaply) by getting governments to assist them, whether in the U.S. or developing countries. When developing countries cooperate, Republicans help maintain inhumane leaders in power. When, as is inevitable, those leaders get greedier, forget who empowered them and stop cooperating, they invade countries and overthrow those governments in the name of “freedom.” They then turn around and sell these cheaply-acquired-but-quite-valuable resources back to the original owners.

Ironic, isn’t it? You fund oil-drilling in places like, oh, maybe the Alaskan wilderness. In the process, you might destroy your precious and previously-untainted natural resource, ultimately polluting the world you live in and killing future generations. The actual oil you helped pay to extract “belongs” thereafter to oil companies. They turn around and re-sell that right back to you in the form of expensive gasoline to power your SUV, which you’ve been convinced you need because it gets the best mileage of all vehicles on the road, making you less dependent on oil.

Meanwhile, Democrats — either because they’re shortsighted, self-centered, or actually believe in not hurting large segments of the population while acquiring their own pleasures — tend to focus on more immediate, simpler pleasures. To add to the misfortune of Democrats, these pleasures are typically verboten. A large segment of America still frowns upon philandering, at least when it’s open and notorious.

Well, don’t Republicans enjoy sex, too? No one has actually proven that they enjoy it, but they do engage in it. How else do you think the buggers breed new generations of exploiters?

The differences are these: More Republicans than Democrats have sublimated their sexual desires in favor of controlling huge segments of the population and getting them to provide creature comforts for the ruling class which, Republicans hope, will usually be Republicans. Secondly, because Republicans crave power, whereas Democrats usually crave…uh, well, let’s avoid another “p” word here and say “nookie,” Republicans will more often ferret out these personal and easy-to-understand failings and utilize them as smokescreens to cover their more harmful, but also more complex, goals.

In addition, Democrats (again) are so self-centered and so immediate-pleasure-oriented that they don’t often enough dig up any real dirt regarding the occasional sexual peccadillos of the Republicans (not to mention they may actually be trying to avoid the “pot calling the kettle black” syndrome; Republicans have no similar compunctions). I do actually think that Democrats typically have their hearts, if not their other body parts, in the right places: they really do care about helping people, so long as those people are not directly (again, it’s the immediacy thing) in their way. And Dems probably are, on average, smarter. Republicans succeed because determination will beat brains 8 times out of 10. Dems have so many brains, however, that they distribute them throughout their bodies; the males keep a portion — the portion that too often gets them in trouble — in a slightly smaller head that they carry about hanging below their belts.

Since Democrat politicos are smart, they are capable of comprehending the real goals of Republicans and they can see through the deception and understand the havoc that will be wreaked if the Republicans succeed. The problem is that they appear to fail to understand that average humans are not all that smart; getting the general population to understand my aphorism (let alone the truth of it) is a hopeless task. The ordinary human being is like the Democrats in that they’re more into “immediacy.” The problem is that the ordinary human being cannot understand much beyond immediacy. For this reason, they cannot fathom the more complex and longer-term moves of the Karl Roves of the world; they do not understand that they are being screwed. Although their own lives become somewhat more impoverished under Republican control, they miss the connection. On the other hand, the ordinary human being is inclined to rally to the Republicans because the Republicans, typically the staunchest of conservatives, will help “protect” and “support” family values (all the while actually destroying families by exploiting them, refusing them necessary affordable health care and damaging the environment in which they have to live).

Middle, or Average, America cares very much about family values. And things like philandering or tolerating diverse views, especially about sexual orientation, are seen as destructive of family values. In the same way that evangelical Christians cannot fathom that their faith is secure without convincing the rest of the world to join in, Middle America feels threatened when not everyone buys into their own views on family values. And the leaders of the Democrat party, by definition, cannot support this narrowminded version of family values; they really seem to believe in providing services and providing them for all citizens (and some non-citizens).

Ultimately, then, the Democrats agenda is doomed when it comes to the average American.

But all this discussion of my political aphorism is actually a digression from my original point. (But since it was a complex discussion, it also served to get rid of the rednecks and average Republicans — although I suspect there may be still be some Republican leaders reading — so that I can now talk about what Democrats need to do to win the election.)

Before the digression, I was mentioning that the reason I won’t run for President, er, wait…the reason the Democrats can’t win right now, is because they are self-centered. As Krugman pointed out, the candidates from the Democrat Party who are running for President are running just because each thinks he deserves the Presidency. And this belief keeps even those candidates who will not (cannot?) win the nomination from recognizing the ways in which they are inflicting significant damage on fellow Democrats who might win the nomination. I think the problem is that Democrats realize, as Krugman noted, that Republicans are taking us all to hell in a handbasket, but they’re unable to forget that Presidents get the best nookie.

The Democrat Party’s candidates for the nomination for President of the United States need to refocus on the larger goal. Perhaps it will help if they keep this in mind: The longer Republicans are in office, the less nookie there will be for everyone. Average Americans will work longer work weeks, giving them less time for nookie. Additionally, Republican leaders don’t want average Americans to have time for nookie because getting nookie is unproductive; it doesn’t fill Republican pockets as quickly as having hundreds of minimum wage/subsistence level workers producing products for Republican consumption and paying taxes to support the corporate welfare that keeps CEOs who otherwise only earn a few million dollars per year. Also, more Republicans in power means more government workers sympathetic to Republican principles — again, less nookie for Democrats, because there will be less interns from the party of the Democrats with whom to party. And, finally, more Republicans means less slots (no pun intended, really) to be filled by Democrats; less Democrats will be able to get to the level where they could enjoy whatever meager nookie is available.

The message these Dems need to hear is simple — so simple that even Middle America should be able to get it: until they start using their other brains, the Republicans are going to keep winning and the American people are going to continue to be the ones who are screwed.