The Colbert Rapport

By Larry Bogad, TheNation.com. Posted November 7, 2007.

Stephen Colbert has given up his run for President, a decision as much determined by the writers' strike as by the Democratic Party's refusal to allow him on its South Carolina ballot.

It's a shame. I was just gearing up to give Colbert my endorsement, bestowing on him the king-making influence I wield as a college drama teacher. For politics and comedy, it's all in the timing.

Colbert had real potential as an electoral saboteur. He has a special rapport with post-hip Americans. His fake pundit persona lights up our ironic imaginations. We're fed up with "no-spin" screaming and "fair and balanced" propaganda. We're sick of all the bitter bluster in the news media; we like our bluster with a smirk and a wink. Rather than ulcerate over the latest rhetorical atrocity from the likes of Bill O'Reilly, we seek shelter in the hall of fun-house mirrors of Comedy Central.

Colbert excited many with his unfulfilled promise to take his fun-house show on the campaign trail, a truly target-rich environment for satirical slingshots. He outpolled Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich; even his claim to be "far realer than Sam Brownback" proved valid (at least he outlasted Brownback). In one recent poll, Colbert scored 13 percent of the vote in an election between himself, Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani. Not bad for a joke candidate who clearly stated that he didn't want to be President; he wanted to run for President. The Democratic Party in South Carolina found itself in the role of the awkward straight man in this routine, refusing him access to the ballot because he is not "a serious candidate."

Colbert was far from the first prankster to run for office. He followed in the proud tradition of Will Rogers's Anti-Bunk Party, Pat Paulsen, Dick Gregory, the Yippie's "Pigasus for President," Wavy Gravy's "Nobody for President," the Rhinoceros Party of Canada and Britain's Monster Raving Loony Party (honorably led through decades of amusing defeat by the late Screaming Lord Sutch). With a potent mixture of irony and rage, Jello Biafra ran a punk mayoral campaign in San Francisco in the aftermath of the assassinations of Mayor George Moscone and Harvey Milk. In 2000, Michael Moore ran ficus plants for Congress in districts where pols were running for election unopposed, with the slogan "Because a Potted Plant Can Do No Harm."

When the comic timing is just right, prank campaigns have a real impact. Pauline Pantsdown, a radical drag queen in Australia, sabotaged the political career of far-right, anti-immigrant politician Pauline Hanson with his/her campaign for Senate. Performance artist and composer Simon Hunt transformed himself into Pantsdown -- a queer doppelganger of Hanson, wearing the same dresses, makeup and hairstyle. Pantsdown followed Hanson on the campaign trail; while Hanson's burly bodyguards kept the dangerous drag queen at bay, the media got the joke and began to go to Pantsdown for ironic commentary. Pantsdown digitized Hanson's voice from speeches and interviews and began mixing and composing. Soon Australia was hearing Hanson as the unwilling vocalist for two sly, bouncy, anti-Hanson dance songs. One song became an underground hit because Hanson's party sued. The other became a top-of-the-charts sensation and was even nominated for two Australian national music awards. Hanson's image became paired with Pantsdown's in the press, primarily because Hanson mishandled the satire with lawsuits and a general lack of humor -- not an admired trait in Australia. Hanson lost her bid for re-election at least in part because of Pantsdown's intervention.

See more stories tagged with: stephen colbert, satire, media, election

Larry Bogad is associate professor of political performance at the University of California, Davis and author of Electoral Guerrilla Theatre: Radical Ridicule and Social Movements.

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