Star Trek and the presidential campaign
It's the day before the election, which means it's time for another shockingly partisan analogy between politics and Star Trek. Here's a recap of the two previously postulated analogies and then the newest one.
The 2000 Republican Primaries: I saw this as the good, old-fashioned Captain Kirk vs. Khan slugfest. Given that the Republican establishment was hitting Senator McCain with accusations of (to put it nicely) anger-management issues, he gets to be Khan, while we all know who gets to be space cowboy Kirk. The primary campaigns played out a lot like the space battles in Star Trek II; Bush and McCain were lurching from one mutually damaging engagement to another each desperately looking for a knock-out punch to use against the other. And it was only when McCain's "two-dimensional thinking" got him sneak-attacked by Bush in the South Carolina primary that McCain was forced to put his campaign into "self-destruct mode".
The 2000 General Election: This was a classic Kirk vs. Spock matchup. Everyone knew that Spock/Gore would use his superior intellect to maximize some critical statistic that normally guarentees victory (in this case the popular vote) while Kirk/Bush would use his intuition to exploit some loophole in the rules and end up the winner.
The 2004 General Election: This one is a lot harder to analyze in Star Trek terms, mostly due to Senator Kerry's lack of personality. The best analogy for Kerry that comes to mind is General Chang from Star Trek VI, mostly due to the General's favorite battle tactic of launching attacks on his enemies while keeping himself well-hidden with his cloaking device. Let's face it, the Klingon/Democrats hate Kirk/Bush, they won't sign the peace treaty with the Federation/Republicans until he is gone, they do everything they can to screw him over, and in the end, Kirk/Bush still manages to win!
The 2000 Republican Primaries: I saw this as the good, old-fashioned Captain Kirk vs. Khan slugfest. Given that the Republican establishment was hitting Senator McCain with accusations of (to put it nicely) anger-management issues, he gets to be Khan, while we all know who gets to be space cowboy Kirk. The primary campaigns played out a lot like the space battles in Star Trek II; Bush and McCain were lurching from one mutually damaging engagement to another each desperately looking for a knock-out punch to use against the other. And it was only when McCain's "two-dimensional thinking" got him sneak-attacked by Bush in the South Carolina primary that McCain was forced to put his campaign into "self-destruct mode".
The 2000 General Election: This was a classic Kirk vs. Spock matchup. Everyone knew that Spock/Gore would use his superior intellect to maximize some critical statistic that normally guarentees victory (in this case the popular vote) while Kirk/Bush would use his intuition to exploit some loophole in the rules and end up the winner.
The 2004 General Election: This one is a lot harder to analyze in Star Trek terms, mostly due to Senator Kerry's lack of personality. The best analogy for Kerry that comes to mind is General Chang from Star Trek VI, mostly due to the General's favorite battle tactic of launching attacks on his enemies while keeping himself well-hidden with his cloaking device. Let's face it, the Klingon/Democrats hate Kirk/Bush, they won't sign the peace treaty with the Federation/Republicans until he is gone, they do everything they can to screw him over, and in the end, Kirk/Bush still manages to win!
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