Naderhotep

And so, every four years, Naderhotep emerges from his dusty sarcophagus and lumbers across the landscape in his shuffling, arm-crooked pursuit of third-party Presidential victory, tanna leaves, and Princess Ankhesenamun, though I'm only guessing at the latter. After chasing the princess for 4,000 years, he may have decided that what Flo over at the bowling alley lacks in nobility she more than makes up for in accessibility.

"He's going to split the Democratic vote!" the pundits and Egyptologists cry - the Republicans with glee, the Democrats with wails of outraged déjà vu. And yeah, Naderhotep will probably cause a certain ruckus in the electorate as he brews his tanna leaves and tries to clip off the dangling threads on his mummy wrap. But in my role as amateur Egyptologist, I offer this handful of thoughts.

1. Mummies don't make good Presidents.

2. As much as I wish Naderhotep would remain in his sarcophagus and let the electoral process go on without his wretched tanna leaf tea and inarticulate groans, the Constitution gives him the right to run and I'd be about the last person to say he positively can't run. The two-party system isn't in the Constitution, after all. It's convenient (mostly for the two parties) but it isn't a founding principle.

3. Naderhotep is a man of impeccable moral standing and the argument that he comes out of the dusty desert as some sort of Republican stooge is silly. He has no use for Democrats or Republicans; he sees them as two manifestations of the larger "Business Party" and thinks they're all corrupt. And it's a tempting conclusion, but I'm of the mind that there are just enough differences between Democrats and Republicans for one to be preferable to the other. So there is value, I think, in going after limited but achievable victories instead of betting the whole Upper Kingdom on a third party home-run play by a shambling mummy who, regardless of his moral fiber, can't win because every time he moves his arms, his followers are overcome by the smell of camphor and scarab beetles.

4. I think it'll be harder to split the vote this year. Naderhotep will still win some votes - I think Anubis will swing his way, but the Nubian vote may be hard for him to hang on to - but I don't foresee a big split this time around. My memory is that last time it was largely "green" issues that gave Naderhotep traction, but I think this time around "lucid foreign policy" and "somewhat less exploitative economic policy" and "at least a token stab at health insurance reform" are going to be bigger issues than mere greenness, and I don't see Naderhotep getting anything done on those issues. The big unknown is what he'll do with the rising tide of American anti-globalism. Will he court it? And if so, will he be able to do anything with it, or will it just snag in his linen wrappings and make him wave his arms in useless inarticulate rage? The matter awaits scholarship.

But in the meantime, stay close to your cats and if you smell tanna leaves or mothballs, head for the exits.