Stephen Colbert to the Rescue

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Within 24 hours of officially announcing his candidacy for president of the United States, support groups for comedian Stephen Colbert had sprung up on popular social networking groups like MySpace and Facebook, the latter of which grew to over one million members in less than a week — it is now one of the largest groups on the website.

News of the funnyman’s budding campaign had rocketed across the internet and blogosphere (Colbert’s established domain), and he abruptly took the next week off from doing his nightly talk show, The Colbert Report on Comedy Central, to appear on various hard news programs, including Tim Russert’s “Meet The Press.”

At last, with the help of the popular and quick-witted Stephen Colbert, we have our chance to hear bold ideas and honest debate! Just like when it happens on the big screen (think Robin Williams in “Man of the Year” or Chris Rock in “Head of State”).

Well, not exactly.

Colbert isn’t exactly running for president, and this isn’t exactly the first time something like this has happened. He’s repeatedly stated that he will only be running in his home state of South Carolina (on both the Republican and Democratic tickets — more on that later), and his campaign is largely considered to be for comedic purposes.

It reminds one of satirist Pat Paulsen, a frequent guest on the old Smothers Brothers TV programs, who nonchalantly ran for president six times from 1968 to ‘96. He was never considered a serious candidate, though he garnered quite a few “protest votes” during certain elections.

Unlike Paulsen, however, Colbert has already proven adept at self-promotion and worthy of gobs of attention. But to what end? He’s limited his own campaign, making it impossible for the public to take him seriously, even as he demands to be taken seriously.

But maybe winning isn’t the most important thing for candidates like Colbert. These “joke” campaigns are enormously useful, for both raising the quality of debate among the “legitimate” candidates, as well as pointing out flaws and absurdities in the system itself.

Case in point: Colbert’s humble goal is simply to be placed on the ballot in the state of South Carolina, as both a Republican and a Democrat. It seems simple enough, but when you look at the requirements for each party (which he did on national television), you immediately see absurdities and discrepancies in the process.

To be listed on the Democratic ballot, Colbert must either pay $2,500, or collect at least three thousand signatures in support of his candidacy. Seems reasonable, and the same is probably true of the GOP ballot, right? Wrong. To have an (R) next to your name, you must pay no less than $20,000 just to be listed — no signatures accepted.

This high cost just to play would probably be a shock to the “values voters” of that state, many of whom will probably vote for the leading Republican because he “seems like a normal person.”

Indeed, the opposite is true, as Colbert demonstrates nightly that he must get corporate sponsorship — from Doritos — just to afford the GOP entry fee. The chip-munching candidate now clearly flaunts his Doritos backing, but it raises an interesting point: with such an expensive process, can we ever expect a truly representative and unbiased representative?

Already this “joke” has become a matter of legitimate debate. After a South Carolina poll indicated that state citizens preferred Colbert as their “Favorite Son,” over Democrat John Edwards (who is also from South Carolina), the Edwards campaign issued the following statement:

“The truthiness is, as the candidate of Doritos, Colbert’s hands are stained by corporate corruption and nacho cheese. John Edwards has never taken a dime from salty food lobbyists …”

This healthy joking is rare and fresh from a politician, but it also helps to flesh out the very issues discussed in this column: illuminating debate and problems in the process.

Perhaps most importantly, Colbert is popular among the notoriously lethargic and uninterested youth culture of America. This is clear from his popularity on Facebook and MySpace, sites dominated by young people.

On the message boards for his Facebook group “1,000,000 Strong for Stephen Colbert,” thousands of messages are posted under discussion topics ranging from abortion to campaign finance law. And new messages are posted at an average of 10 per second.

When it comes to motivating the youth of America to be interested in politics, any interest is good interest. Hopefully, the debate they engage in on their favorite website will leave a truly lasting impression about some of the most important issues of our time.

Or, as one Facebook user joked in the midst of a particularly heated debate, “I have a feeling that what we say on this message board is going to come up during some job interview in the distant future.”

Let’s hope so.

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