With 47 days left until the Doggies’ President is elected, Barack Obama holds a tremendous lead in our Doggie Electoral Map. He’s whipping McCain so bad that my owner is considering moving Sarah Palin to the top of the ticket and trying to sell red “Palin Dog” bandanas to get the Republicans caught up. (Insert pit bull with lipstick joke here.)

For the record, I’m completely against trying to sell more McCain bandanas. I want Barack to beat Reagan’s 1984 results — 525 electoral votes. That’s why when my owner tried to advertise McCain bandanas, I did my best to stop him!

My owner signed up for the Obama campaign’s nifty vice president announcement via text message. Right now speculators are looking at Joe Biden, Evan Bayh and Tim Kaine, while the underdog seems to be the congressman from Bush Jr.’s home district, Chet Edwards.

But is that the best the media can do for an underdog? Chet Edwards? The dogosphere has its own speculations.

Our top pick for underdog VP is Allen Boyd, representative from Florida’s 2nd district and Co-Chair of the Blue Dog Coalition. He’d bring some swing-state voters of Florida, he’d bring some fiscal conservative cred to the obviously socialist Obama campaign, and he obviously loves dogs — blue ones.

I still think underdog Hillary Clinton has a chance. It would be a huge surprise, but Obama risks losing a large portion of The Dog Vote if he doesn’t pick her. Her opponents often referred to her using a euphemism for female dog. That’s not a negative in the dog body politic. In fact, it’s a positive that she’s a euphemism, and that will garner a lot of female dog votes.

The other Senator from Obama’s home state is not considered to be on the shortlist, but Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin is a genuine hero in the dog world. He lead the crusade to examine the safety of dog food entering our country from China. I say no more.

Finally, we have to have one pick that’s as waaaay out there as the Chet Edwards speculation, and he is Cleveland Cavalier’s mascot, Moondog. He has plenty of experience in front of huge crowds, he know lots of euphemisms (just check out his MySpace page), and he’s been vetted thoroughly. How many other VP candidates have had to appear before a congressional hearing on steroid use? (See photo.)

Who’s your favorite underdog vice presidential candidate?

I give Ron Paul credit for defending many of the American liberties that Republicans and Democrats alike have forgotten in our era of cynical politics. We had a reader email right when we started the Doggie Election wondering where the Ron Paul dog bandanas were.

I’m sure you’d find libertarian and constitutional sympathizers in the canine community. However, the dogosphere is not as alive as its human blog counterpart. My owner’s dad wrote a blog post for U.S. News and World Report about translating the passion of Ron Paul supporters into corporate culture, and he got analyzed/complimented/ridiculed ad nauseum.

So, here’s my challenge to you humans. If we get enough write-in votes, we’ll print Ron Paul dog bandanas. (What color would it be? Green, Yellow, Black, Red/White/Blue?)

Should he be included on the Doggie Electoral Map?

Thanks to the good folks at Gadzoo.com for spreading the news about Michael Vick’s former fighting dogs. (Gadzoo powers pet news on newspaper websites nationwide. Check your local newspaper for a pet page.)

It sounds like National Geographic will be airing a program dedicated to DogTown, where many of Vick’s pit bulls now live. Lo and behold, two of them are being honored with a Canine Good Citizen Award.

Law and order conservatives would have all pit bulls off the streets. It doesn’t matter that a tiny minority of them give the whole breed a bad rap. My owner’s sister’s pit bull is vegan and sleeps like a cat. She’s mildly aggressive when you rub her nipples too hard, but who wouldn’t be?

How about background checks for pit bull owners? Article 1, section 1, line 1 for that piece of legislation: Hyper-fast, cannon-armed NFL quarterbacks are prohibited from owning pit bulls. Leave your thoughts on who shouldn’t own a pit bull in the COMMENTS section.

I know, I know. Conservatives will say that this is the typical liberal blame-someone-else game. Just watch the National Geographic program and see who’s to blame.

Paris Hilton was the first to respond to John McCain’s ridiculous Obama-as-celebrity ad, but the real punch line was delivered by Britney Spears. I can see some of her in our new editorialist, Raffles, in her “unwavering loyalty to Bush.”

The Bush administration has forced us into an age of political cynicism, with the rise of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, and culminating in The Dog Vote. If a dog is taking a whack at McCain for comparing Obama’s supposed vacuousness to Britney’s, then where are we as a nation?

She talks to “Tucker Carlson” and stakes her claim to the Vice Presidency. Her application: a wet, dog-style tonguing to, it looks like, McCain’s lower lip.

I’m not saying that she’s not qualified for the job. I mean, she admits that she doesn’t “go home and have orgies, or anything like that.” But we at The Dog Vote are calling for more vetting. Consider the many bitches she’s had over the years from various fathers! We’re not smearing, just stating the facts.

Two emerging, authoritarian world powers were on display Friday. China launched the Olympics games with an acrobatic, running-on-air torch lighting stunt. Russia launched an overly aggressive counter-attack on its small foe, Georgia. Hello world, let me introduce the new world order. India can kill the Doha trade talks. China can veto UN action in Zimbabwe. And dogs might rule the world!

With all the talk of a post-American world, the discussion seems to miss an obvious new contender for power on the world stage: dogs. As the Earth’s economic globalization process creates a ballooning middle class, it buys dogs, and their food and accessories, in massive quantity.

In 2006, it was estimated there were 61 million dogs in America and over 62 million more in the Brazil, China and Russia. That’s an army that someone — the dogs’ Chengis Khan — will raise if Americans don’t listen to Cesar Milan and keep their pups in line.

What humans can count on for now is that there’s no political unity between dogs. The thrice pregnant street bitch of Mexico City has little in common with the the suburban golden retriever of the Ozzie and Harriet set. Try cobbling them into a political alliance.

Dogs are delicately riding a peaceful ascension in the world order, like the Chinese. However, there are frays at the edges: breed-specific legislation, the ridicule of gay marriage as a slippery slope to man-dog marriage, massive ownerlessness in third world countries, the Tibetan terrier problem.

Most dogs want a peaceful ascension into the world order (call them the “silent majority”). We want to keep our doggie pedicures, our “Obama Dog” scarfs and our dog bakery delicacies. We can tolerate the Cesar Milan authoritarianism and the constant tug at the “gentle” leader in exchange for the trappings of modern dog life. But let’s be clear: we should strive to eliminate the street dog culture of the third world, lest their be a doggie Che Guevara biding his time.

I’m taking a break today from doggie political punditry to really push the “Obama Dog” and “McCain Dog” bandanas as a neat way to…. get a date!

I got my testes cut off when I was five months old, so I have no hormonal incentive to impress the opposite sex. I wear an “Obama Dog” bandana to the dog park mostly so my owner can strike up conversations with women.

Let’s examine dog park sociology. A group of human owners normally encircle us as we play. There’s usually an awkward comment about a new, cute haircut or dog toy. Someone says, “what kind of dog is that?”, or, “how old is your dog?”

That’s about as smooth as saying, “you come here often?” at a bar.

The conversation goes further with my Obama bandana. The girls who talk to my owner might comment on Obama’s trip to Afghanistan, or Al Franken’s senate bid (we’re from Minnesota), or last night’s Colbert Report.

Sometimes they’ll simply ask, “where’d you get that bandana?” The conversation goes a lot further that way, knowing that they share political views.

Dogs are chick (or dude) magnets. Dogs with Obama Dog or McCain Dog bandanas are superconductor magnets.

The frenzy over The New Yorker cover depicting Barack Obama as a Muslim got me thinking about discrimination. Not black v. white, or Christian v. Muslim, rather human v. dog.

The New Yorker cover was good satire. It’s also satirical when I do the “terrorist fist jab” (as coined by Fox News) with my dog friends. Am I a terrorist because I’m being ironic and bark “Allah u akbar” as I fist bump? No. But some dense, middle-aged white woman at the dog park might think I am. Especially if a Fox News anchor discerns that I have terrorist tendencies because of my species. That’s species profiling.

Watching me fist bump, moreover, one gets the impression that I might be gay. I’m a little limp-wristed. When I try to jump up on a human, for instance, my gangly legs bend at the wrist and I look kind of like a praying mantis. I’ve heard - from human and dog alike - some pretty rich language to describe my sexuality. Please. I had my testes cut off when I was five months old. I pee like a girl. I’m asexual, really. I reserve my humping for one dog and one dog only, my friend Tucker. But it has nothing to do with sex. Humans need to stop making false assumptions about dog sexuality based on whom we hump. When they giggle and call us names at the dog park, all I can think is that hate language is discrimination.

Then there’s the Breed Specific Legislation issue that is purely discriminatory. Drinking fountains for whites-only, anybody? Last week I tried to go to a concert in St. Paul with my pit bull friend, Chiquita. We wanted to see our cat-friend’s owner’s rock band, His Mischief. I’m a fluffy golden doodle, and I’m more ferocious than my lazy pit bull compatriot. But we weren’t allowed in. Chiquita’s breed, like Obama’s supposed creed, mattered more than the content of her character.

Stop the Doggie discrimination is all I’m sayin’.

The Dog Vote

“If the presidential election goes to the dogs, John McCain is looking like best in show.”

So goes a recent Associated Press article, which stated that dog owners favored McCain over Barack Obama by a 43 to 34 point margin.

Right now I’m going to vent about The Dog Vote’s lack of preparedness. To be honest, I hadn’t heard of the Associated Press before I got the article forwarded to me by super-left wing vegan dog blogger, Chiquita.

The Associated Press? I looked on their website and they’re just a co-op of human journalists. Humans?!? We have our own metric for tracking dog presidential preferences that we were going to announce a day or two after the AP story, but humans got the scoop. I’m going to release the hounds on you, Randolph E. Schmid, Associated Press Writer.

Our plan is to have the dogs vote through the purchase of a bandana. What’s more democratic-capatalist than that? We will track state-by-state sales and show the leaders on the Doggie Electoral Map, now available on the right sidebar of my blog.

I’ve got a story for you, Randolph E. Schmidt. According to the Doggie Electoral Map, Obama has an early lead on McCain. I’m waiting for when your co-op of human journalists looks to The Dog Vote for their lead story!

Try explaining the intersection of governance and “Web 2.0″ to my neighbors’ 11-year old golden retriever. Ask him - with a snausage as a reward for a good answer - how are blogs, email, Twitter and YouTube changing popular participation in politics?

Why does it matter that an 11-year old golden retriever couldn’t answer such a question? Because it’s like a 72-year old presidential candidate who can’t answer that question. (See the dog year to human year graph.)

John McCain has admitted that he doesn’t know how to use a computer. “I’m an illiterate that has to rely on my wife for all the assistance I can get.” That’s more laughable than when Bush said he occasionally uses “the Google” to look up his ranch on a map.

The internet has politically empowered dogs in first-world countries whose owners have enough disposable income to feed them and buy them computers and internet service. Here’s the rub: most dogs under 5-years old use the internet as their primary means of communication. (Who needs the dog park when you have dogster.com?) McCain will not win many of their votes.

UPDATE: Proof-positive that there are dogs in the world with more computer knowledge than McCain: “On the internet, nobody knows you’re a blog.”