Hilary (Forth) For President

Pulitzer Prize winner and pompous blowhard Gene Weingarten as part of his schtick claims to be the world's foremost expert on newspaper comics, a claim that can be easily disputed by Josh Fruhlinger, THE Comics Curmudgeon. Nonetheless, in his Washington Post discussion group, Gene put out the following comics related topic:

Tell us which comics-page, comic book or animated cartoon character should be running for president and why.

I've given this a lot of thought, and my presidential candidate is Hilary Forth, Ted and Sally's eleven-year-old daughter. Her age might seem to post a Constitutional problem, but that's misleading: Hillary was 11 when the strip debuted in 1982, so she is currently 37. She gets my nod for the simple reason that she is the only character out there with a sense of humor, a sense of humility, a highly cynical streak, and an ability to manipulate others to achieve what she wants, which is the definition of diplomacy. Also, she is just plain cool.

I'm more than willing to give Hilary my props. I have written several posts featuring her before, most notably the perversely popular New Delhi Monkey Auditions post as well as a year of her diary entries (which features the same exact strip Weingarten linked to). But Gene has no concept of comic strip temporal dynamics. Hilary will always be eleven years old and her birth date will always be eleven years before the current year. That is just how frozen-in-time strips work. Hilary is no more eligible to run for president than Blondie is able to draw Social Security.

Still, the concept of the youngest Forth running for higher office is intriguing. Using the same suspension of disbelief that makes Teenage Girl President or Prez Rickard possible, I've imagined what a Hilary candidacy might be like.













Ces has already heartily endorsed Gene Weingarten's nomination and you can be certain that I will do anything I can to help the campaign.

BlatantCommentWhoring™: Which Hil(l)ary would you vote for?

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