YES, WE HAVE NO SECOND BANANAS

With the nominations for President pretty well sewn up, and with the voting populace unable to face the spectacle of another eight months of watching George Dubbya Bush and Al Gore both claiming to be "the real reformer", the attention of the press has turned to the burning question of: The Vice Presidential nominee.

Yes, folks, the pundits have started talking V.P. nominee. In March. Something tells me this is going to be a long election campaign.

No one, of course, talks about picking a Veep on the basis of whether he could step up and into the shoes of the President should the Chief Executive prematurely shuffle off this mortal coil. The talk is all political, and centers on whether a candidate should be picked to bolster the Presidential candidate in a geographic region (like New York's George Pataki) or to bolster a candidate with a certain constituency (like Colin Powell or Elizabeth Dole).

Which reminds me, I need to pick a Vice Presidential candidate of my own. And following my basic campaign strategy of "full disclosure because I've got nothing to lose", I have no problem with revealing my own short list. In reverse order of desirability, the candidates are:

Regis Philbin: Personally, the guy annoys the heck out of me. But he's got the ratings numbers and, apparently, access to millions of dollars. He also deserves some kind of credit for sitting next to the horrifying Kathie Lee Gifford for 15 years without going drooling mad. After that, smiling and nodding at my speeches should be a snap.

But I swear, if he does that "Final Answer!?" thing at one debate, just one, I'm going to have the Secret Service shoot him.

Rick Rockwell: We can pretty much assume that ol’ Rick will be free of sexual scandal during the campaign. After that "Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire" fiasco, there isn’t a woman in the country who’ll be able to look at the poor schlub without either laughing hysterically or fleeing from the room screaming in terror.

Bill Gates: Steve Forbes showed us that incredible geekiness is not a bar to running for higher office. The monetary advantages of having Gates as second banana should be obvious. And with Gates’ control over Microsoft and the ubiquitous Windows operating system, we could win with the campaign slogan "Nice Internet You Got There. Be a Shame If Anything Happened To It." I’ll bet he’d take the post, if only to get the Justice Department off his back.

Chris Ofili: The New York artist who caused such a sensation with his portrait of the Virgin Mary "smeared" with elephant dung. Before anybody gets out the stake and the firewood, you need to be informed that the picture is not "smeared" or "spattered" with elephant dung. I've seen pictures of the work and the dung in question is actually integrated into the picture. See, Chris spent a lot of time in Africa, and he really likes elephant dung. To the natives, pachyderm poo is apparently a symbol of rebirth and regeneration. Helps fertilize the grass, don’t you know. It's one of those circle-of-life type things that, for some reason, never quite made it into "The Lion King." So why should Chris be on the Veep list? The ability to craft dung into pretentious religious messages is a valuable political skill. We need to get Chris out of the studio and onto the campaign trail as soon as possible.

George Albright: Who, you may ask, is George Albright? He's a member of the Florida legislature who has come up with the best idea I've heard lately from a state legislature. George wants to create a Cabinet post called Secretary of Barbecue. Finally, a politican who knows where the nation's real priorities lie: in shredded pig cooked over hot coals. Now, since ol’ George is from Florida, we may have to bring him up to North Carolina for a course on real barbecue, but his heart’s in the right place, at least till his arteries harden and he needs that triple bypass.

But, far and away, the obvious choice for my Vice President is: Elian Gonzales. Having him as a Vice-Presidential Candidate may be the only way to keep him in the country. Now there are, of course, some obstacles to having little Elian be the Vice President, namely (a) He wasn't born in this country, and (b) He's only six. But hey, who cares about the law? We're trying to save a little boy from Godless Communism here.

And I bet he spells better than Dan Quayle.

COPYRIGHT 2000 BY JERRY D. RHOADES, JR.