New Rules: February 14, 2014

New Rule: [slide of young Rand Paul with Ronald Reagan and entourage] Senator Rand Paul can tweet a picture of himself when he was a teenage excited to meet Ronald Reagan, but not if he’s covering up an obvious boner. 

I know you’re a libertarian, Rand, but it looks like you need a little more regulation in your pants. Meeting Reagan is an honor, but don’t let it go to your head.

New Rule: Stop saying there’s no whiter sport than hockey. There is: curling. When people who aren’t white do curling, it’s called “mopping the floor.”

New Rule: [slide of female ice skater in contortionist’s pose] Call me. Terrible, terrible.

New Rule: [slide of young Shirley Temple] Now that she’s gone, America must take a moment to remember Shirley Temple Black, and try to forget “black Shirley Temple.” [slide of young Shirley Temple in “blackface”] I’ve offended them again.

New Rule: After listing the side effects of Chantix, the pill that helps you quit smoking – anger, anxiety, depression, thoughts of killing yourself – the drug company must admit that one can experience those same feelings by giving up cigarettes without take Chantix.

And, finally, New Rule: This Valentine’s Day, Americans must remember that politicians are like a box of chocolates. We bite into them to find out what’s on the inside, only to discover that Democrats are too often soft and gooey, and Republicans are mostly nuts.

Now, Valentine’s Day is a good time to remember that psychologists tell us that the strongest relationships aren’t built on animal attraction; they’re built on a lifetime of respect and trust. If that’s what you’re into, sicko.

But, it’s also not really an accurate description of the American psyche, which is always obsessed with what’s new. We love the new phone, the new app, the new restaurant, the new app that tells us about the restaurant. And we see this phenomenon in presidential races.

Voters say they want experience, but, time after time, a part nominates the guy we don’t know that well, and he wins. And when they nominate the older guy who’s waited his turn, they lose. [slides of losing candidates] Bob Dole, Al Gore, John McCain, John Kerry, Walter Mondale, Mitt Romney. America looked at all of them and said, “Where’s the mystery? Where’s the romance?”

Or, in McCain’s case, where’s the pulse?

Now, in America, the ideal candidate for office is someone no one knows. Like Barack Obama in 2007. If he had waited another four years to run, voters might have caught on that underneath his chocolate coating was a creamy layer of intellect. And that never goes over well in America.

But, Obama, always smart. And he realized that if you wait your turn, when your turn finally comes, America is already tired of you. Oh, he was told to wait, told it wasn’t his turn, that he’d only been a senator since Tuesday. Told that nobody knew him and that he hadn’t done anything. And he said, “Exactly.”

Yes, much better to be a blank canvas, before you’ve cast all those votes that can be twisted in attack ads, before you’ve made enemies and left a paper trail, before your dick pics go viral.

Before, in short, you have too much baggage. And who has more baggage than the current favorite for the next Democratic nomination? [slide of Hillary Clinton]

This week, Rand Paul and Reince Priebus both announced that the old Clinton scandals were fair game in 2016, as if it was Hillary’s fault that her husband got blown when he was president in the nineties. Like she was in on it.

Like it was a porn movie where Bill and Monica are doing it, and she’s watching from a white leather couch, while she bites on a string of pearls. [slide of Hillary Clinton on white leather couch, biting on a string of pearls]

No, that Obama, smart guy. He knew. He knew, get in early before some shit happens.

And, the guy who missed that lesson is Chris Christie. He could have and should have run in 2012, back when he still had that “new candidate” smell. [laughter] Back when the public didn’t look at him and think scandal. They looked at him and thought, “Thank God, humans invented clothing.”

Three months ago, Christie was such a shoe-in for the White House, they were practically measuring which wall to knock down to get the forklift in.

But, now, he’s 350 pounds of toast, because the longer you stay in, the more likely some bad thing will stick to you. It could be anything: a land deal from 25 years ago, an illegal nanny, the fact that you’re a witch. People in your office who you had “absolutely no knowledge of” doing something really stupid like throwing a tantrum and preventing people from crossing a bridge. Like a four-year-old crossed with a troll.

Politicians are like suede jackets: there are cheap ones and expensive ones, but once they get rain on them, they all look like shit.