Bush, Turkey

Today, our beloved leader issued his annual pardon of a pair of turkeys (after having them fully interrogated in Syria, of course). The web site of the Imperial Palace offers up some fascinating information on the history of this heart warming tradition, along with a breakdown of this year’s vote, which I’ve reprinted below.

Slate is offering an in-depth analysis of the race and its history.

Every Thanksgiving, the president actually pardons two turkeys – the official Thanksgiving Turkey, who poses for the cameras in the Rose Garden, as well as an alternate, who remains in an undisclosed secure location, ready to take over if the Thanksgiving Turkey is eaten by terrorists. The two turkeys then retire to the Elysian Fields of Disneyland, where they will serve as Grand Marshals for Disney’s Thanksgiving Day parade, and be free to volunteer as mascots for California congressman Duncan Hunter’s 2008 presidential campaign.

A few years ago, Bush aides launched an online contest to name the turkeys. That was back in the days when the Bush White House enjoyed elections.

The turkey naming contest has been more successful than other administration experiments in democracy, like Iraq. But like the administration itself, the contest may be fading away for lack of interest.

In 2004, nearly 20,000 people voted, lifting the names Biscuits and Gravy to a 27%-22% win over Patience and Fortitude. Last year, turnout dropped by a third, to a mere 12,726 voters, as Marshmallow and Yam beat Wattle and Snood by only 27%-26%. The Wattle and Snood campaign is still whining that with a shift of just 65 votes, Marshmallow would have been stuffed and the press would be writing about a Wattle comeback.

This is an election year, so turnout ought to be higher. But the choices in this year’s “Gobble the Vote” contest won’t help. Each year, the race attracts four types of candidates: Famous Founders (Lewis and Clark in ’03, Adams and Jefferson in ’04), enduring values (Stars and Stripes and Hope and Glory in ’03, Patience and Fortitude in ’04, Democracy and Freedom in ’05), turkey parts (Gobble and Peck in ’04, Wattle and Snood in ’05), and Thanksgiving favorites (Pumpkin and Cranberry in ’03, Biscuits and Gravy in ’04, Marshmallow and Yam in ’05).

The race usually comes down to a choice between food and values, and food almost always wins out. Stars and Stripes won on a values mantle in 2003, when the nation was still in shock from 9/11. But Pumpkin and Cranberry finished second that year, while Biscuits and Gravy and Marshmallow and Yam won the last two contests. Turkey parts nearly pulled an upset last year with Wattle and Snood – but without exit polls, we’ll never know how many voters thought those were Republican values, nor how many regions consider those parts prized holiday fare.

This year, the White House faces the same challenge in naming turkeys that it had defending them in the midterms: No values are on the ballot. The Founders have three candidates: Washington and Lincoln, Ben and Franklin, and Plymouth and Rock. The other two entries are Fusion candidates: the Food/Founder hybrid Corn and Copia and the Turkey-Parts/Food combo Flyer and Fryer.

Even lifelong political birdwatchers don’t know how to handicap this race. Washington and Lincoln, who dominate the nation’s currency, will have a tougher time with turkey voters, who have never given a Founder more than 10%. The same bias against historical figures will hurt Ben and Franklin, despite their namesake’s impeccable credentials as the father of Thanksgiving and champion of the turkey as the national bird.

For once, the Founders may have a contender in Plymouth and Rock. Unlike Lewis and Clark and all those ex-presidents, it actually reminds people of Thanksgiving. Of course, if Plymouth could carry the top of the ticket, Lee Iacocca would have won the presidency in 1988, and we could have avoided a pair named George and George W. Bush.

While nobody ever lost money betting against the Food candidates, this year’s entries are more kitschy than appetizing. Like Wattle and Snood, Corn and Copia will leave many voters scratching their heads – although a holiday built around birds stuffed with bread and drenched in cranberries is enduring proof that Americans will eat anything.

Flyer and Fryer is another candidacy built on confusion – two appealing ornithological concepts ill-suited to this particular species. If Corn and Copia sounds like a Bushism, Flyer and Fryer sounds like the Bush Doctrine. Maureen Dowd is drooling at the chance to write up the father-son symbolism of a Flyer and Fryer win, as World War II flying ace Bush 41 sups with third-degree-electoral-burn-victim Bush 43.

As you can see, Slate was way off in theorizing that Plymouth and Rock would win this year. As it turned out, the victory went to Flyer and Fryer. Personally, I think the fix was in. Somebody in the administration is looking to stick it to the boss and set things up to make sure those two would be the winners — not because of the MoDo concept mentioned in the article, but because of what happened today when Bush made the announcement. With his comical, artificial Texas accent, he was unable to properly say the names of the birds, and it came out “Flahr and Frahr”.