Dim and Dimmer

The George W. Bush political juggernaut is an unexplainable phenomenon in a class with extrasensory perception, spontaneous healing, and the Spice Girls. Here is a candidate with minimal accomplishment in public life and a dismal record in business, whose only asset is name recognition. A few diehards apparently think Dad is coming out of retirement, and that it's "Morning In America" all over again.After a mere five years in a real paying job, George W. has announced that he is ready to take over the reins of the family business and move into the White House. It makes you wonder why Americans pay less attention to the qualifications of potential presidents than we do to selecting a plumber, an auto mechanic, or an appliance repairman.A recent characterization of the Bush family as the Wasp Corleones could not be further off the mark. The Bush boys inherited all of their father's looks and none of their mother's brains, making them unlikely candidates to run a muffler and brake shop, let alone a crime family. Or a country.Jeb Bush, the Republican Governor of Florida, recently explained why his wife tried to smuggle $19,000 worth of clothes and jewelry into the country duty free. In a statement only acceptable to a confederacy of dunces, the Governor announced: "She wasn't lying to customs, she was lying to me." Then there's the mysterious Neil Bush, who seems to have conveniently dematerialized since the Reagan-Bush bailout of his Silverado Bank. And previous to his foray into politics, George W. was best known for his ability to perform reverse alchemy, turning family gold into dusty dry oil-less wells.Democrats tend to choose policy wonks as Presidential candidates, even if their social skills are a bit rusty. Republicans, on the other hand, go for the dim bulb, the easy-going doofus who volunteers to go out for a case of Cheetos and a keg.President Reagan may not have been the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he was astute enough to pick a running mate whose sole function was to make him look good. When it was his turn, George Bush, the guy who needed 1000 Points of Light just to read his cue cards, picked Dan Quayle, possibly the only man in America who could make Bush seem like a genius by comparison.Republicans will be faced with a formidable challenge. Who can they possibly come up with as a vice presidential candidate who can make George W. Bush look like anything other than the guy in the corner downing jello shots and putting straws up his nose? It's hard to imagine trusting a guy like this to lead the country, when you would hesitate to trust him with your car or your teenage daughter. But the good news is Republican presidents perform only two functions, neither of which require an IQ above room temperature.The first presidential function is the ceremonial, or Queen Mum role. This requires saluting on the steps of Air Force One, hosting photo ops with Boy Scouts, Special Olympians, and returning heroes of 3 day wars, and appearing at celebrity golf tournaments. No matter how badly they want to get out of the Oval Office and take a nap, all of the Republican chief executives have shown a remarkable ability to say cheese when the flash goes off.The second important job of a Republican president is as Lobbyist-in-Chief, under whose auspices, campaign debts are paid back in a timely manor. Every single business that raises individual donations from its employees, or buys a half-a-million dollar table at a black tie dinner, expects to be compensated with tax breaks, federal handouts, and legal loopholes. Those agendas need to be prioritized, brought to the Congress, and converted to the law of the land expeditiously, and nobody does it better than the Republicans.As Governor of Texas, Bush rewarded his supporters in 1997 with a $2.8 billion property-tax cut, and spearheaded the privatization of the state's $8 billion welfare system by offering a $3 billion, five-year contract to bidders such as Lockheed Martin, IBM and Electronic Data Systems. In 1999, he gave a $45 million tax break to the oil-and-gas industry. "There's a lot of people hurting," the governor said.Which may explain why George W., who probably won't be getting a MacArthur Grant anytime soon, has already raised a record $36.3 million in campaign contributions, breaking all records for the number of lobbyists, former factotums, and family friends, interested in contributing to politics at the grassroots level. Governor Bush puts his mouth where the money is.