Last month, we made our historic first endorsement and named John McCain the most supervillain-friendly candidate on the ballot.
But now the running mates, Sarah Palin and Joe Biden, have stolen some of Obama and McCain's headlines away, and we're left with the question: Could a supervillain be a heartbeat away from the presidency? We aim to answer that question through our patented system of thoroughly vetting the contenders.
For every fact that makes a veep candidate more villain-like, we'll add villain points. For each one that makes him or her more heroesque, we'll subtract some. We'll tally it all at the end.
Media Depictions
Palin
This cartoon seems to be a cute little commentary on the fact that Palin has mostly skirted the media and has pro-hunting conservative credentials, but make no mistake, there's a subtext here, and it's this: Sarah Palin can fillet the fuck out of virtually anything with a knife.
Not only that, but she can do it while smiling crazily. And possibly with her eyes closed.
I fully expect that the very next thing that happened was that she jumped through the paper and gutted the cartoonist and/or the readers.
Plus 50.
Biden
The cartoonist here has gone to great lengths to make Joe Biden look like some kind of vicious attack dog, and hell, maybe he is, but there are a few non-villain qualities here that are very disconcerting.
First off, there are no dog supervillains. There's several gorilla supervillains, one crocodile I can think of. A lizard. No dogs.
Second, Obama's got him on a leash, which is far more henchman than supervillain. Not that we have anything against henchmen, per se, except that we subjugate them and crush their spirits at every possible moment so they don't end up taking our jobs. They almost never get up the ladder to where we are. They don't have the initiative.
Minus 20.
Sex
Deny it all you want, but white men simply have a lock on the villainy business, perhaps more than any other profession, including national politics.
Sure, there are a bunch of female supervillains like Catwoman, Poison Ivy, Titania, Black Cat, Elektra, Diamondback, Harley Quinn and Mystique.
But the problem is just about all of those supervillainesses aren't full-time villains. They're more like anti-heroines, who skirt the line between good and evil all the time. Hell, they even work with and make out with superheroes like, half the time, which is so uncool.
But Norman Osborn, for example, has always been a full-on bastard.
Biden
Plus 30.
Palin
Minus 30.
Rhetoric
Now this is the good stuff.
Here's the former mayor of a small town who asked about the possibility of banning books sarcastically poking fun at a guy who spent years of his life helping laid off steel workers get their lives back.
Seriously, I have such a huge supervillain boner right now over this it's incredible. All she needs to do is dangle somebody over a tank full of sharks and/or radioactive alligators while she does this and I'd hand over my death ray right there.
Plus 50.
BidenIt helps that Cyrillic text is flying by while Biden is railing about Eastern Europe here; it almost makes him look like some kind of McCarthyite headbuster out for pinko blood, if you think about it as an alarmist Soviet news broadcast. Or possibly, if you look at it the opposite way, as Red propaganda, and you draw a mustache on him, he could be Josef Stalin.
Until you listen to what he's saying, of course.
Ending neglect? Rebuilding? Helping? That's hero talk!
Listen, unless you're talking about stomping a mudhole into somebody or maybe saying something to the effect of "We will CRUSH you!" I don't want to hear it.
Minus 35.
Occupational History
Biden
Soon after he finished law school, Biden was an attorney in Delaware for three years (+30). He was also on the county council (+15).
In 1972, he was elected to the U.S. Senate in a huge upset over incumbent J. Caleb Boggs. He has been in the Senate ever since (+55).
Plus 100.
Palin
After graduating from college, Palin became a sportscaster for a local TV station (+5 for the general smarminess of all sportscasters). Four years later, she ran for city council of her hometown (+15). After eight years on the council, she was elected mayor (+20).
Starting in 2003, she was appointed to the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (+20). Three years after that, she ran against the sitting governor who had earlier appointed her to the commission (ballsy). She won (+35).
Plus 95.
Home State
Biden
Delaware is like that unassuming fellow who doesn't look too evil on the outside, but within, he's a seething ball of deviousness.
Among the state's biggest employers are government, pharmaceutical companies and banks, specifically banks that issue credit cards. Which leads us to conclude that Delaware has come up with one of the most incredible villainous plots in history.
Think about it.
Step 1: The pharmaceutical companies make medicines prohibitively expensive.
Step 2: Because the drugs are so costly, people have to use credit cards to pay for them.
Step 3: People rack up so much credit card debt that they have to sign on for government assistance to buy medicine.
Step 4: Raise taxes to pay for the assistance.
Step 5: $$$$$$$$$!
Plus 50.
Palin
Delaware may have the plan, but Alaska is huge, and frankly, there's nowhere better in the nation to build a cavernous secret hideout, preferably within a mountain, under a body of water or inside the crystal corridors of an iceberg.
Also, I can't think of another state where it wouldn't only be possible, but encouraged, to chase someone, a superhero, for instance, through the wilderness in a dog sled.
That would be a hell of a lot of fun.
Plus 40.
Past Crimes
Palin
There's a laundry list of them. She fired the state police chief who wouldn't fire her sister's ex-husband. She asked about banning books. She spent a whole bunch of state money on travel for her family.
But, in the end, none of that seems particularly villainous. Just kinda...naive? Silly? Temper tratrum-ish?
Whatever it is, it ain't villainy. But it isn't hero-like either. So it's a wash.
No points
Biden
When he ran for president in 1988, Joe Biden not only plagiarized another guy's speech, he basically stole the guy's life.
That's ballsy, and it's the kind of initiative we like to see around here.
Plus 45.
Laughter
BidenWhat a great laugh.
Early on in this clip, Biden's got a whole devilish smile going while he looks down and shrugs his hunched shoulders. That's his only indication of laughter, because he's not making any sounds. Awesome.
Put a helmet on the guy and maybe accentuate his eyebrows a little, and you've got a solid Magneto-like figure.
Unfortunately, he kind of ruins it a few seconds later with a goofy chuckle at his own self-deprecating joke, but we'll let that slide.
Hone the silent laugh, Joe!
Plus 25.
PalinPalin's got the same problem as her running mate when it comes to laughing.
That is to say, she's great at laughing at inappropriate things (as in this clip from a radio show where she laughs at a political rival being called a fat bitch who hates her children), but the laugh that actually comes out is simply terrible.
Here, Palin titters like a high school student while the radio show host calls a cancer survivor a cancer.
That shit calls for all-out howling, Sarah! Get your mouth around that telephone receiver and shout "Mwa-ha-has" until your lungs bleed.
Here's a guy demeaning the very life of one of your enemies! You can't half-ass that shit.
You've got to take a deep breath, unhinge your jaw and laugh.
Minus 15.
Hobbies
Biden
By all indications, Biden's chief hobby seems to be riding a train from Washington to Delaware every night so he can sleep in his own bed.
There are lots of villainous things we can think of involving trains -- tying people to tracks, hijacking them, blowing them up, blowing up bridges that hold train tracks, shoveling puppies into the boiler, etc.
But Biden doesn't seem to do any of that. He just rides the train, probably while he thinks about policy or his family or something. Weak.
Minus 30.
Palin
I'm going to be as straightforward about this as I can be:
Sarah Palin shoots wolves from airplanes.
I think that bears repeating.
While flying as a passenger in an airplane, Sarah Palin shoots and kills wolves. With a gun. For fun.
The only way that could be better is if instead of wolves it were kittens, or perhaps babies.
Plus 120.
So with 310 villain points to Biden's 225, Sarah Palin is our winner, making the GOP ticket the most supervillain friendly on the ballot.
Congratulations, Sarah. In celebration, we are conferring upon you the villain name Hockeymom, the Pulchritudinous Pitbull.
