Who Do Monsters Want For President?

The average non-monster citizen has different reasons for supporting a particular candidate. Sometimes the choice centers on the issues and how much one agrees with the candidate. But usually we vote for a candidate for other reasons, such as how good-looking he is or if we like his family. So what about monsters? How do monsters choose the candidate that's right for them? What are they looking for in a president? It's kind of surprising, but it looks like the ones who are able to give it some thought actually do. It seems that the old days when monsters were simply irresponsible and troubled creatures are passing. Some of these monsters are downright civic-minded. Perhaps there's a lesson in this for the rest of us, something the monsters can teach us. And maybe, just maybe, the rest of us will be able to see our own way more clearly as we look at the candidates and go to vote.   We begin with that great Aristocrat of Monsters: COUNT DRACULA. Count Dracula is a distinguished gentleman living in a great castle. As a Count, he of course amounts to something, and lords it over the peons for miles around. But they're not just afraid of him because he might foreclose on their land; they have other reasons to fear! Dracula came from a good family, he had great breaks, things were going his way. But something happened to him along the way and now he's a blood-sucking monster! Anyway, we've all seen Dracula's films, how he sleeps in a coffin during the day and stays up all night drinking blood and avoiding mirrors. Dracula has been a hard one to pin down (just mention a stake and he becomes a wolf and dashes into the forest), and that's why he's been able live through all these centuries of time. But we were able to pin him down concerning some of his political views. It seems this year he's supporting George W. Bush for President. Some of the reasons are probably fairly obvious. Being a count and having considerable holdings, Dracula is in a higher tax bracket. He doesn't particularly care for the villagers and servants, and so it doesn't concern him that they need affordable prescription drugs, health insurance, various educational opportunities, safe wheels for their wagons, and new straw for their mattresses. He hasn't been as excited as he is about Bush's tax plan since the time Jonathan Harker cut his finger! When you're someone like Dracula, alive for centuries with very simple needs, you tend to be conservative. Nothing wrong with that. It's just you like the way things are and want to keep them that way. In his case this is fairly natural. But most of us see a wider world out there and want to improve things, which means meeting new challenges and accepting change. Not Dracula! He believes instead in very limited government. That way, if he wants to let his horses pull his wagon and passengers up a steep rock-strewn mountain pass without a driver (except himself as a bat flying overhead), he may! Or if he wants a castle full of female zombies without having to apply for a permit, it's nobody's business if he does! Or if he wants to export coffins full of rats and vampires without inspection, what of it, On many social issues, Dracula is also conservative. To look at just a few, he's definitely "anti-choice," because he believes that any time we can bring new blood into the world we need to do it. He opposes all restrictions on guns, but draws the line at allowing silver bullets (a nod to Wolfman). He likes the idea of faith-based organizations taking over programs that might otherwise be handled by government, but he's totally against them displaying the Cross. Concerning the environment, he favors having the bat as a protected species. If we could manage it, he'd like to see an eight-hour day. And on the death penalty, he says he can take it or leave it. Our interview was cut short when Dracula was inching a little too close for comfort, pulling his cape up over his mouth and trying to get all funky and mesmeristic with his eyes. We felt a little safer because of our turtleneck sweater, but not safe enough! And yet, now, even at a distance, we feel somehow drawn back, mysteriously drawn... And as the sun begins to set, the feeling is palpable... Yes, Master, we hear, and we obey...   Probably no monster better embodies the spirit of America's motto E Pluribus Unum – one from many – than FRANKENSTEIN, being literally assembled by Dr. Frankenstein from the body parts of several corpses. He knows what it is to feel the pain of others. He knows firsthand how it takes a village to make a monster. And when he sees someone worse off than himself passing by, he's able to think "there but for the grace of God go I" and really mean it! We know the rest of his story, how he came to life, how he was raised high in the sky one stormy night and enlivened via the metal posts at his neck by lightning bolts. It was this life-giving fire literally from heaven that made him the awesome modern Prometheus he became, whereas had the doctor simply hooked him up to jumper cables and charged him with the pickup, he might have been Ram Tough or Like A Rock but no more. And so he had life. But what kind of life? His life, such as it is, has not always been happy, First, his looks. If you're going to assemble a monster from body parts, would it kill you to be more selective? You only have one chance to make a first impression, and the impression Frankenstein makes is seldom positive. Of course if this is what the folks of the area looked like who passed away, it seems like you'd see their surviving relatives around who looked somewhat similar. But back to the topic. Frankenstein's life has been unhappy for the most part. He had one brief respite from terror – one great joy – and that came when he made friends with a small blind girl. This however led to his greatest sorrow – a pitiful reimmersion in terror – when the townspeople saw the two together and came after him with pitchforks and torches. With no justice whatsoever, he ended up on the Sexual Offenders Registry, and they burnt his castle till it set a smoldering hulk. As a monster, FRANKENSTEIN is a little different. He looks stiff and lumbering, but he has a good heart. He always means well, but he can turn more than a little rough when provoked. His political views of course come out of his personality and who he is. This year Frankenstein is supporting Al Gore. The way Al Gore says he's for the people, not the powerful appeals to this sometimes-gentle giant. He has a profound innocence about him and doesn't always seem to be aware of his great size and power. He always thinks he's just like anyone else, and that 'next time the townspeople will understand me'. And even when he's burnt and killed, his optimism never seems to be affected (that is, once Dr. Frankenstein revives him his optimism returns.) So he wants the best for everyone even if they misunderstand him, and he has a spirit that says we can do it, it can be done! His origin, being assembled from many parts, also bears on Frankenstein's politics. He feels the pull of different interest groups, and wants to do what he can for each of them. He wants to give when he can, to help where he can. For this reason, he likes the ideas Gore has for the budget surplus. It should be used to make things better for as many people as possible, not just the few. His arm talked it over with his leg and now he's thoroughly convinced! Frankenstein's views on some of the hot social issues of the day include: he's pro-choice, knowing that anytime we want we can stitch together all the people we need; he favors gun restrictions (he's kind of a "slippery-sloper" in that his real target is to regulate pitchforks and torches); he's against the death penalty because it's ineffective (people can keep coming back); and, he's for gay rights (why do you think Dr. Frankenstein wanted such a big monster in the first place?!)   Next is THE MUMMY. There's never been a good Mummy movie. When it comes to monsters, the Mummy's a dud. It's always like this: he happens to be dead, no fault of his own. He's been dead for centuries. But some crooked archaeologists want to loot Egyptian tombs. They ignore every warning of a curse. The Mummy exacts revenge upon them, then is finally unwrapped and disintegrates into dust. The Mummy's a little different from the average monster in that there's just not much to him. He owes his whole post-mortem existence to a long strip of cloth! There's just nothing there! So who does the Mummy support for President? It seems this year it's George W. Bush, but his support isn't that strong. In fact, when we went into his tomb to ask, he wanted to know if Julius Caesar was running again! (We had a little fun with him and said this time it was Caesar's son, Julius W. Caesar, but of course that was just a little joke!) We patiently explained to the Mummy who the candidates were. Then we explained again. Then again and again. We tapped his head and noted a very hollow sound echoing from within. Finally, he grunted a couple times and said, "Bush." What can we say? The Mummy's a profoundly ignorant guy. It's like we were getting at before on the "strip of cloth" line, if the Mummy was wearing a suit he'd be an "empty suit." As it is he's an empty bandage! By the way, that's what they say about Bush, the suit. It's like Bob Dole said, a lot of people wonder if there's anything really there. Bush could be like the Mummy: catch him au naturel and you might say, "I see a pile of dust, but where'd the governor go?" What is true of the Mummy himself is also true of his political views: not much there. He's a very selfish creature we know. Always trying to safeguard his own little tomb, always cursing people, always seeking revenge. He's "bound" and determined that nobody's going to disturb his own little world! So he really didn't have interesting views about political topics. Of course he's against the inheritance tax, but all of his heirs are already dead so that doesn't make much difference. And he'd like tighter controls on what's allowed in archaeology, which he called the WWF of Science!   Up next, we check in with THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON. We'll just call him The Creature, for short. The Creature is one of those monsters who seems like he has real potential, but has just never launched out with the talents he has. He's stayed close to home there in the Black Lagoon. He's really barely a monster at all, kind of like the Mummy, in that he just stays at home and minds his own business. We imagine he eats a few fish, a turtle now and then, and that's about it. Then what? Lays out on the Lagoon's beach and catches a few rays before bedding down. Just another ho-hum day. But he becomes a monster when he notices outsiders coming into his precious lagoon. They're out there on their boat, also minding their own business and intent on exploration. The Creature sees them, and probably out of some territorial instinct, attacks them. Of course all he has is his brute strength and doesn't foresee that they have advanced technology (guns) and are able to wipe him out. What he needs to do is simply lay low, cross his claws and hope they leave. Or if worse comes to worse, he could move to a different lagoon and change his name. Well, we caught up with The Creature and found him at first to be just like he is in the movies, like he'd rather kill us than talk. Through sign language and pictures we explained what we were doing there. We flashed him a picture of George W. Bush. This seemed to just totally enrage him, and as you can see from the unretouched photograph above, our life was in real jeopardy! So we knew he couldn't be supporting Gov. Bush! Then we figured we would be safe if we flashed him a picture of Al Gore. Big surprise: he was just as enraged and we were again above his head precisely as before, double-jeopardy! Of course it turned out he didn't recognize either candidate and was just looking for an excuse to vent. Anyway, nothing seemed to be going our way with him till we held out a teaspoon of sugar. The Creature ate the sugar and demanded more. We gave him another spoonful, and he wanted more. With the third teaspoon we replaced the sugar with a strong tranquilizer, and then he was ours! Now a lot more calm, The Creature expressed some of his political views (after we explained about the candidates). Not surprisingly, environmental issues are big with him. He's seen outsiders encroach on his beloved Black Lagoon more than once, and with them comes exploitation and pollution. He told us about ecosystems and nature's balance among the species. He pointed at the black ooze (oil) that gives the lagoon its name, and said the outsiders always want that stuff, for some unknown reason. He said he didn't know what was so good about it since it always catches fire and the taste never improves no matter how long it cooks! We pulled out a copy of Al Gore's book, "Earth In The Balance," and explained what it was all about, and that seemed to really awaken something in The Creature! So he's for Al Gore. There's one other issue The Creature's passionate about: he favors restrictions on guns, because he's known gun violence firsthand. He's for comprehensive health care programs, particularly for victims of gun violence. And of course he would like to have a more extensive lagoon set-aside program, for lagoons to be natural preserves remaining untouched, unknown, unvisited...   Just one more, THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN, because we wanted to find someone who was supporting one of the third party candidates. And we finally did! This little monster is supporting someone for President whose overall support has been, yes, incredibly shrinking! Now, The Incredible Shrinking Man is of course not a monster. But we're including him because his movies are usually in that basic genre. And while he isn't technically a monster, his situation is freaky enough to almost qualify. Let's put it this way, anyone with the physical propensity to become an Incredible Shrinking Man has enough seriously wrong with him that he might just have the DNA in there somewhere to also become a monster. And if we can find instruments small enough, we should forcibly sterilize him lest he find an Incredible Shrinking Woman and our nation see a whole infestation of Incredible Shrinking Children. Imagine the troubles these little pea-brains could cause! (Trivia: The Incredible Shrinking Man's favorite movie is "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids." He pointed with pride to a VHS copy of it that appeared from his perspective to be about six foot long.) Well, we caught up with the Incredible Shrinking Man (not hard to do), to find out about his political views. It turns out that he's supporting Pat Buchanan. The Incredible Shrinking Man always seems to have a lot of paranoia about the "big world" out there crowding in on him. He wants to protect his own little area first, and so tends to be an isolationist. The Incredible Shrinking Man has his own take on things, as should be obvious. When you spend your day in abject terror at everyday household things, you tend to be withdrawn, self-interested, a protectionist. The Incredible Shrinking Man didn't appear to have sophisticated political views across the board, but had one pretty good reason for supporting Buchanan: "I believe he'll stand up for the little guy."