Super Tuesday Means Goodbye Forever

They've become almost like distant family over this long year-and-a-half campaign that still has another eight months to go -- the kind of family you pray won't actually show up at Christmas or Thanksgiving, but family nonetheless. Many have already left the 2008 race, and many more will be gone come Super Tuesday.

For those of us who follow politics, we know at least some of them by first name: Rudy, Barack, Dennis, Hitlery. And we know one of them by two first names, because that's how much Ron Paul loved Freedom.

Others, we didn't really get to know at all. They were like the fifth cousin who calls at 3:46 a.m. from the pay phone at Lincoln County Jail. It was best to just pretend it was a wrong number and go back to sleep.

And yet, these people wanted to be president and maybe even briefly believed it was remotely possible.

Chris Dodd had his "DoddPod," Bill Richardson made some funny YouTube commercials, Tom Tancredo worried about the Mexicans, Mike Huckabee proved Jesus does not want to hear about poor people, Duncan Hunter was our only San Diego congressman to evade federal prosecution, Grandpa Mike Gravel told us to get off his lawn, millionaire lobbyist Fred Thompson was "down home" with his hot new D.C. wife and Hollywood acting career, Joe Biden said funny things about the different races, Tom Vilsack dressed up like Winnie the Pooh, spaceman Alan Keyes doesn't even know what planet he landed on, John Edwards promised everybody a free liver, Dennis Kucinich was the "old fashioned liberal" with the tall sexy wife, Rudy Giuliani kept us laughing with his crazy criminal friends and taxpayer-supported adultery, and Sam Brownback was the token "Christian Conservative."

It would be inaccurate to say, "You all ran good campaigns," because none of you ran a good campaign. You're all losers.

But these aren't the only forgotten losers from the 2006-2007 portion of the 2008 campaign -- and we're not even talking about third-party or no-party candidates like comedienne Cynthia McKinney or Corvair spokesmodel Ralph Nader. A number of unlikely nominees never ever made it to the "declared" part of the race. Farewell, Chuck Hagel, Jim Gilmore and Sam Nunn! It's like you never even ran for president, because you didn't.

After the hundred-million-dollar carnage of Super Duper Tuesday, we'll most likely have only a single Republican not named Mitt Romney to kick around, while Hillary and Obama may well keep kicking each other around until summer. Al Gore and Mike Bloomberg could even jump in the race to make it fun again. But today, let's say a quiet "Good Riddance" to all the pretend presidents we'll never really have to think about ever again. Goodbye forever, failures!

Ken Layne is the editor of Wonkette.com