Given that the Register is known to have a conservative bias (you can often guess a person’s political affiliation from whether they read the Register or the Los Angeles Times), chances are that their answer is “No.” However, it’s undisputed that Bush has been expanding executive power over the past six years.

The trick with expanded power is that people often don’t object when the person wielding it is someone with whom they agree. Even if you think it’s OK for President Bush to insist on greater powers, eventually, someone you don’t like will be in the Oval Office. Even if the Democratic party implodes, there are different factions in the Republican party, and chances are either the Republicans would split, or another party would rise to fill the gap. And if no one did… well, a one-party system isn’t much of a democracy, is it?

So whether it’s 2 years from now, 6 years, or 10 years, someone you disagree with will end up with all the powers Bush has pushed for. If there’s anything you don’t want that President to have…are you sure you want the current President to have it?

Also, notice the banner indicating 2 days to April 15. Recall that this was on Saturday… in other words, April 15!

Of course, because of the weekend, income tax is due on the 17th this year, so the countdown was correct if you think of it as a countdown to the tax deadline. I figure they just didn’t want to get a different banner just for this year. But it just sounds like celebrating the Fourth of July on July 3.

This issue, however, though it had some nice moments, was basically a plot summary. “Poet tells the story of…” It seemed an odd narrative choice, particularly for an issue so near the end of the story (#22 of 24) and for the first issue to hit the shelves in nearly two years. Maybe it’ll read better in context.

Anyway, that’s not what I really wanted to talk about. What’s interesting is that in this issue, one of the Specials runs for President. It reminded me of something about the way comic books tell campaign stories. When a fictional character is in the race (or the office), he (it usually is a he) is almost always running under one of three circumstances:

• As an independent.
• On a fictional third-party ticket.
• On an unidentified party’s ticket.

As we all know, third party candidates are rarely high-profile, and they rarely get significant numbers of votes, and I don’t think one has ever won the office*. Yet in comics, it happens all the time. Of course, heat vision, teleporters, and people who wear purple tights to fight crime are also commonplace.

When you think about it, the reason is obvious: the publishers do not want to be accused of political bias, nor do they want to alienate half their readers (or half their readers’ parents). So you get Ravenshadow running as an independent in Rising Stars, or Lex Luthor’s “Tomorrow Party” [archive.org] in 2000, or the disguised Top’s Vice-Presidential bid as an unidentified third-party candidate in 1996.

There is another approach. One of 1991′s Armageddon 2001 stories featured Superman running for President. It’s told in the context of the two-party system: he goes through the primaries, runs against one opponent, etc. But they never actually say which party he’s running with, so you’re free to make assumptions based on your own political leanings.

On the other hand, when all the story needs is the participation of the current President, most comics will use the real President. This, of course, makes for some of the more dramatic examples of the ever-shifting timeline of shared-universe comics, like the perrenially-thirtyish Superman shaking hands with JFK. Perhaps this disconnect is another reason to stick with fictional Presidents.

* We have elected presidents from other parties, but not since 1850. Even then, if I remember correctly — and feel free to correct me if I don’t — there were generally two main parties… it was just a matter of which two parties were at the top. Here’s a table of past US Presidents.