Is Stephen Colbert Making a Joke Out of this Election?
The poll that came out yesterday was something of a shocker. Rassmussen asked people, if given the choice between voting for Ron Paul or comedian Stephen Colbert for president, who would they choose. The funnyman came out on top 36%-32%.
Equally as surprising was the result if Colbert were matched up against Democratic Congressman Dennis Kucinich for president – 37%-32% in favor of the comedian.
That poll comes on the heels of another survey that showed Colbert getting 13% of the national vote if he were to run as an independent.
Has the country gone batty? I’ll admit that Paul and Kucinich aren’t qualified to be president either but at least they each have experience in government. But Colbert is a clown, a court jester. Surely people can’t think he has what it takes to be president?
Whether they do or not is beside the point – especially for Colbert who announced his candidacy on his popular Comedy Central TV show on October 17. Apparently, the effort is part of a combination gag and book promotion with a bit of merry prankster mischief thrown in for good measure. Colbert is tweaking the establishment, taking his television personae of a blowhard conservative commentator and using his singular brand of humor to make the pros look like the double-talking, flip-flopping phonies so many of them are.
And just what kind of humor does he employ? Colbert’s jokes brilliantly juxtapose political talking points and clich√©s – mixing, matching, reversing and even double reversing phrases to create a truly original kind of comedy. He refers to it as “truthiness,” taking political doublespeak and turning it on its head.
Here are a couple of examples from Colbert’s controversial appearance at the White House Correspondent’s Dinner:
I believe the government that governs best is the government that governs least. And by these standards, we have set up a fabulous government in Iraq.
That’s where the truth lies, right down here in the gut. Do you know you have more nerve endings in your gut than you have in your head? You can look it up. Now, I know some of you are going to say, “I did look it up, and that’s not true.” That’s ’cause you looked it up in a book. Next time, look it up in your gut. I did. My gut tells me that’s how our nervous system works.
I stand by this man. I stand by this man, because he stands for things. Not only for things, he stands on things, things like aircraft carriers and rubble and recently flooded city squares. And that sends a strong message, that no matter what happens to America, she will always rebound with the most powerfully staged photo-ops in the world.
There’s something of a sneer underneath the laughter – a simple-minded adolescent trying to sound as if he knows more about the world than he actually does. His appearance at the Correspondents Dinner drew mixed reviews. Some believed he showed no respect for the office of the president. Others faulted his thinly veiled attacks on Laura Bush. Colbert himself didn’t expect the adulation or condemnation:
In the immediate aftermath of the press-corps appearance, Colbert seemed genuinely unsettled by all the attention, refusing to speak on it publicly. At the taping I attended with the crazy-enthusiastic girl who asked about giving the president the finger, he demurred uncomfortably, saying, “For the record, I was there to do jokes.” He then said of the president, “He’s a charming fellow … ” before trailing off and taking the next question.
Colbert’s announcement of his candidacy had been anticipated for weeks. In fact, his staff got in contact with the South Carolina Democratic and Republican parties inquiring about procedures and filing deadlines in order to get his name on both ballots. His plan is to run in South Carolina only, his home state. And he says it’s not really his intent to take votes away from other candidates. But given his rabid following – the Colbert Nation – it will be hard not to have some kind of impact on the primary.
All this to give himself a platform to sell his new book %%AMAZON=0446580503 I am America (And So Can You).%% And to poke a stick in the ribs of the political elites, exposing the way that candidates can appear to be talking out of both sides of their mouth at the same time. Yet, this effort by Colbert is much different than the campaigns run by the other comedian to take to the stump, Pat Paulsen.
A regular on the old Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, Paulsen was actually asked to run for president by the brothers saying when approached, “Why not? I can’t dance – besides, the job has a good pension plan and I’ll get a lot of money when I retire.” Paulsen was the anti-candidate. He wasn’t smooth. He didn’t appear to be very smart. And when he spoke, his barbs were fairly non-partisan in nature, bashing the major candidates from both parties. His campaign slogan was “Just a common, ordinary, simple savior of America’s destiny.”
By contrast, Colbert makes no bones that his conservative tough guy alter ego from the show is to be hated and laughed at. He draws the character just broad enough to make him look ridiculous while still sounding like a fringe right winger. And there’s an edge to Colbert’s comedy that sometimes makes fun of those who are not quite as sophisticated as he and his audience believe themselves to be. People of faith, those who are too outwardly patriotic, even rural Americans can be the target of his humor. In this respect, there are those who see him as mean rather than funny.
The comic himself admits it’s a balancing act to make the character unpleasant while remaining funny. But is it really necessary to belittle people by portraying their beliefs in God, country, and home as stupid and silly? Colbert knows the risks and thinks long and hard about the character to avoid such pitfalls. Obviously, he doesn’t always hit the target in a way that pleases everybody.
With only a million viewers for his TV show, Colbert has become a much bigger presence as a result of turning into an internet phenomenon. Video clips of his bits are passed around and regularly appear on YouTube. And the audience for his show is made up of politically savvy young people and a significant portion of the political class thus increasing his impact enormously.
His candidacy may be a gag. But political pros are watching nervously. If Colbert were to turn his wit toward making one candidate or another look bad, who knows what kind of effect that will have on the voters?
As it stands now, the comedian will probably remain a small presence, using the backdrop of the campaign as a prop for his wildly original brand of humor.
Rick Moran blogs at Right Wing Nut House.
Don’t look now, but Ron Paul is taking a serious leap on Amazon’s Movers and Shakers list with his book “A foriegn policy of freedom”
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/new-for-you/movers-and-shakers/-/books/sr=53-1/qid=1193913806/ref=tr_57971/104-0859541-3408758
the problem isn’t that people may take Colbert seriously as a candidate. The problem is that people DO take the other candidates seriously. The whole pageant is an exercise in absurdity and i think its great that someone is willing to go out and expose the flaws in the emperors wardrobe. If he can take votes away from these candidates, running as a fictional character, that shows how seriously people take these “real” candidates.
This is what happens when debates are nothing but recitation of talking points and journalists never ask tough questions to many of the candidates (Democrats in particular). Notice how Hillary! folded up like a lawn chair when Russert finally dared to ask an obvious question.
So anyone clever and willing to fence with questioners can step into the breech and look good.
The media turned the campaign a joke long before Colbert showed up.
-The ‘You Tube Debates?’
-Boneheaded questons from the likes Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann as ‘moderators’?
This is supposed to pass for serious? Gimme a break. This media circus deserves ridiucule.
First off Gravel is the only candidate speaking truth to power and trying to bring Democracy to the American people. So of course corporate media ignores him. But are you serious when you say Paul and Kucinich aren’t qualified to run the country. I think they’re more qualified than any of the so called front tier candidates. What has our country gotten into??
Did anyone compare Colbert to the other candidates? I’ll bet he would beat Hillary. 50 percent of America “would never vote” for Hillary, according to a recent poll, so anyone not hated would edge her out in a poll.
Instead, this article only compares Colbert to those who the media has dubbed joke candidates. Media opinions have no predictive value. Ron Paul is given as high or a higher chance of winning than any candidate except for Giuliani on Intrade (online gambling sight). They do have predictive value.
Discuss.
Sincerely,
Will
Colbert may run as a D. (only) candidate in South Carolina. During last night’s show, the $35K filing fee for the GOP was mentioned. In comparison, the D. fee was feasible for the comedian at $2500.
Apparently, decision makers supporting the “Colbert candidacy” in South Carolina were not comfortable with him writing a $35K check for a filing fee to the Republican Party.
Interesting and Funny — better than a double-speaker who would be taken seriously, or UFO sighting witness
!!
I’ve never watched the man, but it sounds like he has ripped off Archie Bunker. There’s nothing new in show business by now, so good for him if it works on the comedy scene.
Pat Paulsen had another slogan that was funnier, by the way:
“WE CAN’T STAND PAT!”
As far as Colbert’s poll numbers, I predict his eventual vote total is much lower. If I am wrong, Democrats are sillier than I believe, and I already think they are rather silly.
That Colbert is doing so well only highlights the fact that all the other candidates – on both sides – are singularly unimpressive.
Where’s Pat Paulsen whenwe need him? I guess Colbert is trying to fill his shoes.
The other candidates, like Ron Paul, only serve to give Colbert more material to work with.
Dave: “But are you serious when you say Paul and Kucinich aren’t qualified to run the country.”
Well, now, Kucinich would be great as Secretary of Defense Against UFOs. Or maybe as Secretary of Agriculture, Vegan Diet Division.
Can anybody really come up with any evidence that Kucinich can run a dog pound, let alone a village, let alone a country?
Paul’s problem is that he attracts an unpleasant batch of vulgar supporters.
His new book turns out to be only a collection of his speeches. The least he could do is turn the material into a real book.
As for Gravel, he has a brilliant YouTube video, one that’s sure to get him elected:
Mike Gravel
The rest of them might just as well head home.
Is Stephen Colbert Making a Joke Out of this Election?
Why not? I would. The only serious candidate running is dismissed by those who feel they ‘know’ more, and the ‘electable’ candidates are nothing more than different shades of each other. Pretty much what we’ve been offered for well over a generation. Can anyone seriously say anything will be different if Hillary or one of the Republican ‘chosen’ is elected. No, it will be status quo. Government interfering more in the lives of the citizens here and abroad, taking more of our money to ‘take care’ of us, and acting belligerently towards those nations that represent no real threat to our borders. Meanwhile ignoring the open borders to our South.
Colbert is not making a joke of the election, the election is already a joke. Colbert just decided to show up.
I agree with above comments. Colbert was barred from running in S.C. by the state Democratic Party today because “he is making a mockery of the electoral process.” No, the electoral process is already a mockery, he’s just making it even more painfully obvious. I think this is a glaring example of how counteractive it is to real political change to continually support the Democratic Party establishment.
I think it is high time for a Colbert candidacy. He expresees the deep thoughts and feelings of millions of Budweiser-drinking, bowl-buzzed, college kids like myself, unfairly deprived of a voice in this election. Don’t you care to get out the youth vote?
He might even get elected if he could visit “Nip and Tuck” and get a job done on that damned wockyjawed ear.
That thing really annoys me, almost as bad as those fudie Republican manifest destiny types.
Colbert is more authentic and more interesting, and, I suspect, much wiser than most of the candidates running today. I’d vote for him in a second – having seen the results of those the parties push at us, no thanks. I’ll pick someone with a sense of humor and intellect, for a change.
“Has the country gone batty? I’ll admit that Paul and Kucinich aren’t qualified to be president either”
And you aren’t qualified to make statements like that, apparantly.
Especially Dr. Paul, but even Kucinich, are more away of what this country needs than any other so-called front runner. Who mostly run on name recognition, but not on policy.
If Ron Paul doesn’t win, its only because his policies would hurt the government – corporate complex. Not that he isn’t fit to become policies.
If you read – really read – his economic policies, they are the only ones that make sense to save the economy of this country.
It is one thing to have a finger on the pulse of American politics, but quite another to be playing an active role. Quite frankly, Colbert is rude, annoying, and in my mind not funny, and his only appeal is to the boozed-out college kids (I am in college and resent this stereotype) who are too drunk to care. If he were to get elected, I would sneer even more about presidents in the media then I do now at mister George Dubya Bush.
Satire (n): A work in which human vice or folly is attacked through irony, derision, or wit.
Were people offended when Swift suggested we eat Irish newborns? I hope so, but he had a point to make – a point that was difficult to address directly because it was so divisive. And he felt the need to be blunt.
Now we have a divisive election coming up, with people unable to address the context that gives the issues meaning because we are afraid to offend.
Satire is called for.