Weird world of the wannabes

One cooks bacon with a machine gun — that’s Ted Cruz. 

Another wants to put the US army on the streets to prevent abortions — that’s Mike Huckabee. Then there is The Donald. Welcome to the weird and wonderful White House wannabes.

Seventeen of them are Republicans and five are Democrats and one of the 22 will end up next year being the leader of the free world.

First up is Texas senator Cruz and his video showing him cooking bacon that he’s wrapped around the barrel of a machine gun. Then he fires a few rounds and, hey presto, the rashers get cooked in the heat.

“There are few things I enjoy more than on weekends cooking breakfast with the family,” Cruz says in the video, produced by the conservative media outlet IJ Review and entitled Making Machine-Gun Bacon with Ted Cruz. “Of course in Texas, we cook bacon a little differently than most folks,” he adds, helpfully.

But the gun-loving senator, one of the strongest opponents of gun control in the US, doesn’t explain whether he’s cooked up the breakfast to highlight the joys of bacon or to promote the addition of a machine gun in every kitchen.

Then there is former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee who wants to put the US army onto the streets to prevent abortions. He might also consider using the FBI, he said. Everyone’s views on abortion must be respected, of course, but this seems to be carrying enforcement a bit far.

Then again, Huckabee doesn’t seem to be that fast on his feet. He recently decried President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran because, he said, it would “march Israelis to the door of the oven”.

It makes Donald Trump seem positively sensitive. And comedy shows are having a field day with quips:

• “During a speech on Friday, Senator Ted Cruz said that if you walk up to someone and say ‘Joe Biden’, the person will crack up laughing. Which is the same reaction you get if you say ‘President Ted Cruz.”

Seth Meyers

• “Ohio governor John Kasich became the 16th Republican to announce that he is running for president. During his speech he referred to Jesus Christ, which is ironic because so did Americans when they heard another Republican was running for president.”

Jimmy Fallon

• “Hillary Clinton’s idea of marriage equality is both of you should get to be president.”

Seth Meyers

Which brings us to the Democrats . A quip in Washington once described the difference between Republicans and Democrats. It went: “For Republicans, politics is the most fun they have. For Democrats, politics is the most fun they have — with their clothes on”.

A few years later the sex scandal involving President Bill Clinton and intern Monica Lewinsky emerged. But you’d think after that crisis, which nearly toppled the president, the Democrats would have learned a lesson. Not so.

A few years later an even more audacious sex scandal gripped the country.

This time it centred on North Carolina Democratic Senator John Edwards, another wannabe president of his day.

Edwards ran for the White House in 2008 — unsuccessfully. Which was probably just as well because two years later he admitted he had fathered a child in an extramarital affair the same year he was running for the presidency.

Perhaps there’s a lesson in all of this for the 2016 candidates: Democrats should be careful with their clothes and Republicans should be careful with their words!