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Tuesday, Sep 11, 2012 10:46 PM UTC

Morning Joe for president!

America needs another self-important centrist beloved by our useless political elite to humiliate in 2016

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Topics: 2016 Elections, Joe Scarborough,

Morning Joe for president!Joe Scarborough, host of "Morning Joe", takes part in the NBC News Decision '08 panel at the NBC Universal summer press tour in Beverly Hills, California July 21, 2008. REUTERS/Fred Prouser (UNITED STATES) (Credit: © Fred Prouser / Reuters)

Oh, there is some exciting news buried beneath this incredibly demeaning and depressing photograph of Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski in the latest issue of Vanity Fair. Morning Joe is going to run for president, guys!

After the presidential inauguration in January, Joe (no fan of Mitt Romney’s—”I’ve been very critical”) plans on publishing a memoir that will serve—no joke—as a vehicle to test the waters for a presidential run in 2016. Take that, Mr. Romney.

I can’t wait to read this! “Morning Joe: The Amazing Story of How My Second-Place Cable News Morning Show Convinced a Dozen People That I Could Make a Go at a Presidential Run.”

But I have some questions about this! Will Joe Scarborough run as a Republican? Because he would not win a Republican primary anywhere. I guess Washington, D.C., has a Republican primary. He might win that one. Or will he run as a Democrat? Because he is not a Democrat and therefore would run into similar trouble.

Will he run as an independent? Probably, right? In 2010 the idea was that Bloomberg and Scarborough would run together in 2012, which would have been hilarious. That didn’t happen because Mike Bloomberg is smarter than Joe Scarborough. But now let’s say Scarborough makes a 2016 run without Bloomberg as an independent. Why would anyone do this? There is no possibility of winning, basically. How many votes did John Anderson get, again? Couple million? Joe Scarborough would be exceptionally lucky to get anywhere near John Anderson’s total.

It turns out, alas, that this is not actually news. Vanity Fair sort of made up the “test the waters” bit, and Scarborough — who I am sure did beg Bloomberg to run with him in 2012 — claims to have “no plans” to run in 2016. (Also the horrible photo was taken in 2010. Article author Douglas Brinkley: “It’s just a goofy paragraph to go with the photo of Mika.” Whee, magazine journalism!)

But you know Joe Scarborough isn’t going to rule out a run because the people are definitely clamoring for it:

“I’ve got no plans to run in 2016, or in 2020. But you never know what’s going to happen,” he said. “Every two years, there’s someone suggesting that I run for Senate. Every two years, the national party comes to me. I’ve always been really flattered. But I look around, and I have the best job in the world. I have no desire to leave.”

Which national party, do you think? I’m guessing the Modern Whig Party.

Whichever party, I hope Joe takes them up on it. I honestly, truly hope Scarborough runs. Because it will be very instructive for him and for the people who assign magazine stories about how cool and awesome he is. It might help these people to belatedly realize that rich right-leaning self-proclaimed “moderates” who live in the Washington area and the nicer Manhattan ZIP codes are not actually remotely representative of the mood of the American electorate. Not that I expect the lesson of Scarborough’s inevitable humiliating failure to stick! These guys totally missed what happened when Jon Huntsman attempted to run a campaign designed solely to appeal to them, and then he lost because no real human beings wanted to vote for him. They also missed what happened when “Americans Elect” bought ballot space for a hypothetical candidate exactly like Jon Huntsman, and no one cared.

Haha remember Joe Scarborough’s 9/11 song? Joe Scarborough wrote and recorded a vanity song about 9/11. RUN, JOE! AMERICA NEEDS YOU.

Alex Pareene

Alex Pareene writes about politics for Salon and is the author of "The Rude Guide to Mitt." Email him at apareene@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @pareene More Alex Pareene.

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