How to Tell the Difference Between All the Dudes Running for President

Now that 7,000 American men and several drunk farm animals have officially declared their candidacies for President, keeping track of them has never been more confusing or difficult. Luckily, we’ve put together a “cheat sheet” with “quick trivia” to help the political layperson discuss with confidence the nuances of each male candidate’s views and legitimacy. Feel free to use any and all of these in kicky water cooler conversations about politics this summer, and impress your friends!

Jeb Bush

Who? Former Florida governor
Strength: Bilingual, centri$t
Weakness: Once listed himself as “Hispanic” on a voter registration form, which is very silly because he’s a Bush, which is like double the white of the average white. It is an almost-lethal dose of toxic levels of white. He’s Write An Entire Feature Length Screenplay in 12 Hours-levels of white, if you catch my drift.

Scott Walker

Who? Union-busting hot ham enthusiast
Strength: Is married to woman named “Tonette,” which makes him and his wife the couple with the most Wisconsin names in US History.
Weakness: His record as governor of Wisconsin; he is also physically unable to move the top half of his face while speaking which makes him come across like a lying potato.

Rick Perry

Who? Rubber-faced Texan Dick Tracy villain
Strength: New glasses.
Weakness: Pills, numbers.

Fig 1: Scott Walker, Jeb Bush, Rick Perry

Donald Trump

Who? Serious candidate with good and viable ideas.
Strength: Possesses neither shame nor self-awareness, the two most important traits of highly successful people in 2015.
Weakness: None; he’s perfect and America needs him in the race for as long as possible. We deserve this. We’ve earned this.

Bernie Sanders

Who? An unkempt self-identified socialist from Vermont
Strength: Good ideas, adorable.
Weakness: The Rand Paul of the Left.

Ted Cruz

Who? Oh he’s that guy whose face is melting, right? Like, the smug debate team captain? That one right?
Strength: Can talk for a long long long long long long long time.
Weakness: Polling so low in a crowded field that he might not even make the first GOP debate.

Fig 2: Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump, Ted Cruz

Rick Santorum

Who? A frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter, frequently found on the wrong side of history.
Strength: Unprecedented chickenfucking stamina.
Weakness: Muscular thighs 😉

Lindsey Graham

Who? Definitely not a lesbian. I know that for sure.
Strength: Literally doesn’t know how to do anything else but grandstand about politics. If society ended and it was every man for himself, the strong would definitely eat the bloggers and Lindsey Grahams first.
Weakness: About as inspiring as a half-licked yogurt lid.

Mike Huckabee

Who? Jolly sociopath from Arkansas. The one Megyn Kelly always rhetorically spanks on her show.
Strength: Real affable.
Weakness: Famous for aligning self closely with people who abuse animals and children.

Fig. 3: Mike Huckabee, Lindsey Graham, Rick Santorum

Martin O’Malley

Who? Former Maryland Governor
Strength: Is hot, can play guitar.
Weakness: Is Tommy Carcetti from The Wire.

Chris Christie

Who? Oh, you know. That guy. That dick guy from New Jersey. The Springsteen fanboy who had his feelings hurt when Bruce was like, ugh, not you. The one who yells. You know the one.
Strength: Loud.
Weakness: A dick.

Fig 4: Martin O’Malley, Marco Rubio, Chris Christie

Marco Rubio

Who? Oh, man. Uh, he’s a Senator right? From Florida? And he’s Cuban.
Strength: Inspiring to the base, young enough to seem fresh.
Weakness: Balding, a natural byproduct of aging for many men. But, in our denial of the finite nature of our lives, voters want a President who they can imagine living forever. It’s not fair, Marco. It’s not fair. Why do we pretend? Why do we fear the beautiful inevitability of silence?

Rand Paul

Who? That guy those ultimate frisbee players were talking about on the bus.
Strength: Free pot for everybody, even fetuses.
Weakness: Is made of mostly water, susceptible to infections resulting from ever-evolving microbes.

Lincoln Chaffee

Who? ????
Strength: Sounds like he might be good at ??? baseball??? In the 40’s maybe?!?
Weakness: Like every human being who has ever existed, like every human civilization that ever existed, he will one day die.

Bobby Jindal

Who? Some nerd from Louisiana
Strength: Excellent security system.
Weakness: Everything made by people must come to an end. Paint peels off, books are forgotten, buildings collapse and are buried beneath hundreds of years of soil. Rome ended whimpering. The Aztecs were all slaughtered. What difference does it make who is in office when a Cortez or Pizarro lands ashore?

Fig 5: Lincoln Chaffee, Bobby Jindal and Rand Paul

Jim Webb

Who? zzz
Strength: zzz
Weakness: The other week I was cleaning out my room and I came across a box of keepsakes—ticket stubs, maps, newspaper clippings—that I’d been saving. Who are these for? I said aloud. I’m not going to have a child. They’ll just be another thing for somebody to throw away.

Fig. 6: Werner Herzog, Werner Herzog, George Pataki dressed as Werner Herzog at ComicCon

Ben Carson

Who? The doctor. The actual doctor. Isn’t it funny that Scott Walker, a college dropout, thinks he’s as qualified to run America as a literal brain surgeon? That’s some white man confidence.
Strength: Brain surgeon.
Weakness: How could the pitiful finiteness of our individual consciousness be worth preemptively mourning, if nobody has any knowledge of what the alternative is?

John Kasich

Who? A clump of cells, conceived out of sheer luck, nurtured from zygote into fetus into baby into man that gradually aged without succumbing to innumerable indifferent deadly hazards at every step of life.
Strength: Is made from the same material that existed at the moment of the creation of the universe.
Weakness: Every day, every atom in his body loses an infinitesimal amount of energy. Just as your body does. Just as my body does. We are skidding to a stop over billions of years, slowing until there’s nothing left.

George Pataki

Who? Water, air, electricity, bile.
Strength: I remembered his name for this list.
Weakness: What happens after this? We swim forward like sharks, gulping it all down, washing experiences over our gills so that we can breathe, and for what? At the end we sink and dissolve. Our consciousness is the product of a vulnerable biological shell, instantaneously breakable, endlessly fragile. The limited life spans of our living matter doom us to make the same mistakes over and over as a species, never passing on the full accumulated wisdom of those who died before us. Eventually, we all fade back into the biological sludge from whence we came, our secrets, our hopes, our dreams dissolved to their atomic fragments.

Robert David Steele

Who? All of you and none of you.
Strength: Is.
Weakness: If a big enough meteor strikes us before next November, we won’t have to worry about any of this.