As I stare deeply into the news until the news stares back at me, I keep having vignettes pop into my head. I’m writing three-second short stories for myself all day, like when you’re people watching at the airport but on a much bigger scale.

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I imagine being picked as the candidate for vice president. I imagine that, the week I get picked, the press immediately starts comparing me to some obscure TV comedian I’ve never even heard of just because we both have dark hair and glasses. I chuckle warmly the first couple of times people ask me about it; I guess I can see it, I say.

Within a week and a half, every time I check my goddamned e-mail, another one of my “friends” has sent me a link to some Youtube clip where this “comedian”– this asshole– is dressed like me on national television making fun of the way I talk. When my little sister used to do that thing where she repeated everything I said just to get on my nerves, it was all I could do not to punch her out, and now I’ve got someone walking around behind me for the whole nation to enjoy, aping my every mannerism in my favorite suit. Great; guess I can never wear that suit again now. Thanks a lot.

And then my advisors start weighing in, like it’s a campaign issue. They want me to go on the stupid show.

“You have to show the voters you have a sense of humor about yourself,” they say. “You seem more relatable and human if you show you’re not bothered by it.”

“Not bothered by it”? Mark my words: when I take office, the first order of business is to dispatch a small squad of Secret Service guys with silencers to take care of this clown once and for all. Sure, I have a sense of humor! For example, you know what’s hilarious? Having the IRS audit the shit out of a sketch comedian. We can share that little joke in January, joker.

In the meantime, I have to stand here like a yutz in front of 10 million people, watching from 20 feet away as this bozo mimes what an idiot I am and a studio audience laughs and applauds the whole thing right in front of me. And oh, joy, here comes Alec Baldwin. Maybe someone from Nickelodeon can just come pour some slime on me from the catwalk now, then douse the whole thing in feathers and call it a night.

Ha ha, America! See how well I’m taking all this? See how the smile never falters? That’s electability, huh? Laugh it up, America. You’ll get yours.

Marky Mark now. How did I get here? If you had told me two months ago….

Oh well. Apparently this is the way people decide who to vote for now. And they’re questioning my qualifications. What qualifies you to decide who runs the free world, geniuses? Make fun of all the pageants you want; the talent competition factors into my final score all the same.

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I also imagine what it must be like to be the comedian who resembles the candidate and gets pressed into satirical service, even though I have my own show to worry about. Here I am onstage, going, “I’m gonna be VP, duh duh duh!” and I can literally see the person I’m making fun of out of the corner of my eye, staring at me intensely from 20 feet away. I wish I’d foreseen this evening when I told that reporter I would “leave the planet” if the Republicans got elected. As we pass one another mid-sketch, I get a look that I’ll be describing to my grandchildren one day. Oh yeah. Tonight’s afterparty is gonna be super comfortable. It’s still open bar, right?

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For that matter, I wonder if anyone who ever wrote a campaign song ever stopped to think about what’s going to happen if their guy loses. That single is out in the world forever, dating you to new fans, reminding old fans of the sting of defeat. It turns from an anthem to a dirge overnight, and if your cards really suck people start to resent you for getting the Adlai Stevenson song stuck in their heads. Every time I hear a bad poll for the Republicans, I think about that guy who wrote “Raisin’ McCain” hearing the boos rising up from the crowd, thinking, “It could be worse, right? I could be a Dixie Chick.”

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One day’s news, compressed:

“If there is any single upside to this economic crisis, if there is one positive outcome in our behavior, it is that this brush with the Depression should finally be the thing to shake this consumerist, credit-obsessed culture out of its irrational spending. This could finally be the thing to get the American public to live within its means, to conserve, and to spend less of its money frivolously chasing the latest status symbol instead of responsibly OH MY GOD A NEW MACBOOK IS OUT! It’s made of one piece of aluminum instead of five pieces of aluminum! I have to go call my lender!!”

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I imagine being an older conservative guy. Actually, I imagine being someone like one of my dad’s friends. You’re a little older; the eighties were pretty good to you, and you worked your way up the rungs into management so long ago that when you look at a union guy your mind’s eye sees him turn into a giant cartoon rat. Your faith is very important to you, and your brain is burning way more calories on the pro-life movement than anyone you know even realizes. You see the poll numbers for this Obama character on the TV, and you feel like the anchorperson is going to turn into a Cheshire cat and vanish before your eyes at any moment. A ten point lead, for a community organizer? Is something psychotropic being put into the water supply? So when the McCain campaign has a rally in the suburbs of your town, you are standing in line outside bright and early, singing “God Bless America” to drown out the protesters across the street.

You get inside, and the rally is a moderately loud, manageably fun party. There are dozens of people with signs that say “Give Em Hell, Johnny” and “Blind Deer Hunters For McCain” and all of the things you would have expected to see among your people. There are also some other signs, though, that don’t mention McCain at all. They’re all about Obama. Some of the things the signs say about Communism and al Qaeda give you a little bit of pause, even if you worry too on some level about the things they allege.

Then the candidate comes out, and the place goes nuts. For a while, you can forget about the polls and the signs and the presidential approval ratings and the worries and just enjoy John McCain, the man you want to give the keys to the car. Let the other side have their electrifying celebrity orator; the steady hand of the Maverick on the wheel is all the inspiration you need. For now, you can let your guard down among your own people and enjoy being like-minded in a world that seems to have gone crazy. Even without the singing and the shouting, it’s a great time just knowing everybody in the room is on the same page as you. You don’t have to watch your tongue for fear of getting into it with anybody. It’s like a warm blanket. It’s like being at Cheers.

Then McCain mentions his opponent, and the two guys standing next to you– younger guys, a little rowdy and unshaven– shout loud enough to be heard on the other side of the auditorium. “Terrorist!” one screams. “Kill him!”

Kill him. These people are standing right next to you. You could reach out and touch them if you wanted.

What do you do? How do you react?

Do you recoil? Do you look over at them disapprovingly and say, “Now, now, fellas”? At this moment, do you hear the anger in the shouting all around you and, your own pro-life passions weighing suddenly heavily on your shoulders, look around the room thinking, “What sort of company am I keeping? What have I signed on for?” Does it stick with you in the car all the way home, and for days thereafter? Or do you stand there clapping and put it out of your mind?

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I suck at donating. Years ago when I was unemployed and living on macaroni and NPR, I swore I was going to give money to public radio one day. In the end, it took so long I just stopped listening to public radio. I am a drag on society.

I haven’t given to a campaign in years either. It’s the balloons that do it to me.

I watch the conventions every four years, and every four years the candidate gives his triumphant speech and 70,000 balloons descend from the rafters. Those balloons have to come from somewhere. Someone had to sell them; someone had to ship them; someone had to inflate every single blessed one of them and get them up there. Very few of those someones did that out of the goodness of their hearts. Money changed hands for that minute forty. And then someone had to clean that popped disaster up.

This year, Ted Kennedy spoke to the Democrats for what unfortunately was likely the last time. He took the stage to thunderous cheering, and thousands of the delegates in unison began waving uniform, professionally printed “We Love Ted Kennedy” signs. It was very moving, to someone; I kept looking at the Ted Kennedy signs individually and thinking, “That’s my donation right there. I cracked open my piggy bank so Barack Obama could pay his staff, and he spent the money on two ‘I Love Ted Kennedy’ signs.”

Imagine what it must be like to be that little kid who sold his bike to donate to Hillary. Remember that stump speech? Little Timmy’s not gettin’ that bike back. Though I’d certainly try if I were him.