Since it was my idea, I’ll start.  But I won’t promise not to change these as the election nears (and as I thinka bout it more). 

In order of importance (in my opinion):

Secretary of State – Bill Richardson (Alternate – Hillary Clinton, though a poor second)

Secretary of Defense – Jim Webb (Alternates – Dick Lugar or Wesley Clark)

Secretary of the Treasury – Larry Summers (probably safe from his Harvard “scandal”), but only because Robert Rubin won’t want the job  Alternate – Robert Reich, my favorite economist.

Attorney General – Patrick Fitzgerald for his commonly-held incorruptability; Eliot Spitzer in another (less sordid) life

Secretary of the Interior – Al Gore would be great, but would never take the job

Homeland Security – Undecided

Secretary of Labor – Easily John Edwards until his scandal, now Dennis Kucinich?  Probably not, but wouldn’t it be great?

Secretary of Energy – Potentially a huge job in the Obama cabinet, likely goes to somewhen from industry with a green repuation

Secretary of Commerce – Chris Dodd?  Barney Frank – there would be a bold choice.

Secretary of Veteran’s Affairs – Jim Webb if he doesn’t get defense.  Maybe Wesley Clark.

Education – Undecided

Health and Human Services – Hillary Clinton would be great here if she were willing to take the dive.  However she wouldn’t.  She wants senate majority leader.

Agriculture – Kathleen Sibelius?

Transportation – How about Gary Kelly, Chairman and CEO of Southwest Airlines?

John McCain. Senator (R-AZ). Spent more time in a Vietnamese POW camp in his twenties than I did in marriage that felt like one. Earned a “maverick” status in the Senate by following his conscience and forming bi-partisan consensus when drafting and supporting legislation. In 2004, was mooted as a potential running mate for the Democratic nominee John Kerry. Subsequently pissed away any admiration for his moral high ground by pandering to the conservative base and acting as a cheerleader for George Bush; was obviously promised the nomination in exchange for swallowing his principles and towing the party line. Although it is unlikely that a McCain presidency would amount to “Bush 3″, it is clear now that McCain will pander to whatever constituency will put him and keep him in power. If you like militarism, fearmongering and government intervention in your private social affairs, John McCain is your man this year. I know you want better, but he’s all you’ve got.

Hillary Clinton. Senator (D-NY). Hillary Clinton is a woman. Vote for her if you like women. Don’t vote for her if you only like women naked, on their knees and with their backs slightly arched. During her two terms as the junior senator from New York, Ms. Clinton distinguished herself by not totally fucking up her guaranteed bid for the White House in 2008. However, as a presidential candidate she has distinguished herself by totally fucking up her actual bid for the White House in 2008. She has been consistent in her opposition to George Bush and the Iraq war (except when she has voted for it). She opposed the war but supports the troops and loves America. She is a champion for poor, working-class people (which is code for “white”, since everyone knows black folks don’t work). She is surprisingly unashamed to proclaim that the core of her support comes from people from West Virginia who didn’t go to college (or, as the rest of the world would call them, “the functionally retarded”). Recent policy prescriptions include the summer gas tax holiday, which would reduce government income, allow oil companies to raise prices, and probably increase demand (in actuality, quantity demanded) of an increasingly scarce and planet-destroying commodity. When told that virtually every creditable economist lambasted this plan, she blamed “those people” for our current situation and preferred the wisdom of the average American for whom the $30 saved on gasoline taxes would mean the difference between feeding their families and living on the streets.

Barack Obama. Senator (D-IL). The most common and successful argument against Mr Obama is his name (Barack = Iraq; Hussein = Saddam; Obama = Osama), which is probably the most unfortunate name for a political candidate since Dick Assman didn’t run for mayor of Regina (sounds like “Vagina”), Saskatchewan back in the mid-1990s. Many critics (Geraldine Ferraro, for one) claim that his popularity stems primarily from his “blackilishiousness”, a charge leveled with equal accuracy against previously meteoric black candidates such as Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Alan Keyes and other nitwits. Others suggest that for every slightly guilty-feeling white yuppie liberal wanting to expiate their guilt by voting for the first-ever palatable black candidate (read: hasn’t yet demanded financial reparations for slavery) there is a KKK member with a sheet on his head and an rifle hidden underneath, and that together these cancel each other out in the electoral mathematical equivalent of protons and electrons. That is, of course, if the electrons threatened to lynch the protons for looking at their women. Although Obama has run primarily on a vague message of “hope” and “change” he has had limited success articulating how he would not inevitably dash the former and do the latter without actually doing-the-latter to anything.

Based on the choices on offer, I am recommending to my readers what I feel should be an obvious solution: a write-in vote for Al Gore. After all, he already got the majority of the country’s votes eight years ago; anything else would just be gravy.