Friday Afternoon Random Question: Animal Politics!

Sick of all the dirty campaigning and so on, the two presidential candidates come up with an unorthodox strategy to determine a winner: each will be allowed to choose an animal, train it for one month, and then pit it against his opponent’s beast in a no-holds-barred, winner-takes-all battle. (Just assume for our purposes that, somehow, PETA is on board with this.) UPDATE: Should have noted: no weapons allowed.

You are a presidential candidate. What (real — not imaginary, not mythical, not something out of a book or movie, not extinct) animal would you choose? And state your case.

Me? I’m leaning toward bull hippo. Super strong, perpetually bad mood, faster and more agile than it appears.

33 comments

  1. Good choice. I know the hippo beat the bull shark on Discovery Channel’s Animal Face-Off: Hippo vs. Shark. But if it has to be real, I would go with a griffin.

    @ 3:19 pm on October 31, 2008
  2. It’s pretty much my favorite animal. It’s like a lion and a tiger mixed… bred for its skills in magic.

    @ 3:19 pm on October 31, 2008
  3. Whoops… a Liger. It’s pretty much my favorite animal. It’s like a lion and a tiger mixed… bred for its skills in magic.

    @ 3:19 pm on October 31, 2008
  4. I’d pick a human. No beef from PETA on that one.

    @ 3:23 pm on October 31, 2008
  5. I would choose the fly in my house that REFUSES TO DIE!! It follows me, buzzing, and landing with his filthy legs on everything I own. He would bring down any species.

    @ 3:25 pm on October 31, 2008
  6. and before you go an throw me off for a “mythical” creature, check here

    @ 3:27 pm on October 31, 2008
  7. Hogzilla.

    @ 3:34 pm on October 31, 2008
  8. Any moose that can outrun Sarah’s helicopter.

    @ 3:38 pm on October 31, 2008
  9. I’d pick a chimpanzee, armed with a .460 Weatherby Magnum. It’s particularly effective on bull rhinos.

    If we rule out chimps with firearms, I’d go with a Cape buffalo.

    @ 3:42 pm on October 31, 2008
  10. Or maybe George DeJohn.

    @ 3:43 pm on October 31, 2008
  11. You know, Mike Tyson is willing to bite things off.

    Can I change my answer to Mike Tyson?

    @ 3:50 pm on October 31, 2008
  12. (canned laughter-dissolves-into-applause track for Steve)

    Seriously, though, you’ve failed to define the nature of this battle, other than that it’s “no-holds-barred.” Is it a fight to the death? A duel of witty rejoinders? A Nathan’s-hot-dog eating contest?

    @ 3:59 pm on October 31, 2008
  13. Actually, having considered the matter carefully (if not exactly at length), I believe the presidency should go to the candidate who can eat the most Nathan’s hot dogs. It would be a cathartic end to an exhausting election season.

    @ 4:03 pm on October 31, 2008
  14. Why must you be so detail-oriented when it comes to my tossed-off questions, Daniel?

    It’s a fight to the death. Should death not occur after, say, a day, then yes, we can go to a tie-breaker of Nathan’s hot dog consumption.

    Should *that* fail to yield a winner, then we move on to a round of Trivial Pursuit, but using the original game, so the animals will be forced to remember what the correct answer was in 1982.

    If *that* also ends in a tie, then it’s back to a fight to the death, but this time under the auspices of chessboxing.

    @ 4:07 pm on October 31, 2008
  15. That wouldn’t be fair … can you imagine how many hot dogs McCain could hold in his jowls? We’re talking Kobayashi levels.

    @ 4:10 pm on October 31, 2008
  16. He said “tossed off” and didn’t get robo-edited. That’s what she said. Huh?

    @ 4:22 pm on October 31, 2008
  17. Why does pit-bull terrier come to mind? Of course wearing Gucci and lipstick.

    @ 4:25 pm on October 31, 2008
  18. Also, Gallo de Cielo.

    He was a warrior born in heaven so the legends say.
    His wings they had been broken, he had one eye rollin crazy in his head.
    He’d fought a hundred fights and the legends say that one night near El Sueco
    They fought Cielo seven times, and seven times he left brave roosters dead.

    I mean, what could be more appropriately symbolic to solve this dilemma than a ****fight?

    @ 4:26 pm on October 31, 2008
  19. Wow, you’re quite the policy wonk, Zac.

    I would choose a bonobo. It would humiliate the religious right with its lewd shenanigans, and that’s the kind of healing America needs right now.

    @ 4:29 pm on October 31, 2008
  20. And now you have me jonesin’ to watch _Battle at Kruger_ yet again.

    @ 4:29 pm on October 31, 2008
  21. Turducken – three on one!!

    @ 4:34 pm on October 31, 2008
  22. Russell’s viper is the world’s No.5 Venomous snake. Its is responsible for more human fatalities than any other venomous snake. It is irritable. When threatened, it coils tightly, hisses and strikes with such speed that its victim has little chance of escaping. Its hemotoxic venom is a powerful coagulant, damaging tissue and blood cells.

    @ 4:44 pm on October 31, 2008
  23. I think everybody should have the right to pick their own animal. If they can’t afford one, I think the rich should pick two animals and immediately give one away. And, when they give that second animal away, they should pay a larger animal gains tax because they used their original choice on something they then parted with. Of course, I feel you should agree on this fundamental change in animal policy because Bush is bad.

    @ 4:54 pm on October 31, 2008
  24. Laughing at Obama…
    What if your animal were to produce offspring? Would thast put you in a higher animal tax bracket? What kind of benefits would I recieve if say I chose a rabbit rather than a horse?

    @ 5:06 pm on October 31, 2008
  25. Decent idea, Obama. But not as fun as lewd shenanigans. Bonobos will often **** another bonobo’s *****, the comedic implications of which are self-evident; also, their multifarious perversions include ********, *****, ********* and ****. For a bonobo, fencing with its ***** is just another way of saying hello, and at the end of the day, the whole family settles down to an evening of **** the *****, ******, or ******* each other’s *****. It’s like The Aristocats, only acted out, only it’s not acting, it’s just another day at the office for a randy bonobo. If a bull hippo tried to rip its limbs off, the bonobo would ***** the hippo’s ****, and I mean, really now, whaddaya think that bull hippo’s gonna do?

    @ 5:18 pm on October 31, 2008
  26. My animal is the feared and fearsome crocogator – head of crocodile on one end, and head of alligator on the other.

    @ 7:39 pm on October 31, 2008
  27. And in the end, they all fell victim to the bacteria that causes the common cold.

    @ 10:00 pm on October 31, 2008
  28. a bear

    @ 8:19 am on November 1, 2008
  29. I think a grizzly would be better a chessboxing than a hippo.

    I would probably pick a polar bear though. Even if PETA’s on board, that would have to piss them off.

    @ 11:02 am on November 1, 2008
  30. One word: Jackalope!

    @ 1:26 pm on November 1, 2008
  31. As you can witness from the greatest prank call in the history of womankind, a sow with lipstick is my animal of choice

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/11/01/masked-avengers-prank-cal_n_140023.html

    @ 5:00 pm on November 1, 2008
  32. No fair! You already picked hippo. I wanted a hippo. And polar bear has also been taken? Damn. Give me the bot fly. (http://www.cracked.com/article_15816_5-most-horrifying-bugs-in-world.html)

    @ 7:32 am on November 3, 2008
  33. Magic Johnson…not even HIV can slow him down.

    @ 8:56 am on November 3, 2008