Republican Debate #2: Who are the Candidates?

The 2024 Presidential election got off to a rocky start this summer when the fourteen slowpoke candidates in a race with a clear breakaway leader gathered on stage to shout at each other for the first Republican debate.

Critics of the myriad members of the Republican B-Team have condemned the group for failing to make any sizeable dent in the former President’s lead, but after Donald Trump officially dropped out of the race under the weight of repeat judicial inquiry earlier this week, experts are saying the time is right for the field to heat up.

Just kidding because he didn’t and no one’s saying that. With Trump still in the running and committed to a twice-in-a-row-no-show, this one is sure to be as boring, confusing, and meaningless as ever. You are absolutely not going to watch. But not knowing anything about the debate will make you look stupid at the water cooler tomorrow morning, so you’re doing your due diligence. I’m proud of you. Here’s everything you need to know about tonight’s candidates.

The Candidates

• Keith Miller — CEO of We the Penis, a men’s rights-focused conservative political action company
• Zeelai Jufford — 100 year old governor of Oklahoma hoping to supercharge the former slave owner vote.
• Cathy Gates — Governor of Tennessee and woman who sat out the last 8 years of Republican politics. A former cabinet officer and rising star, her experience and level-headedness is a source of unending disgust for the party’s new base, modern Colosseum bloodsport attendants.
• John Doubledick — CEO of East Waco Oil Gaskets who sees himself as “just like Trump”.
• John Scunthorpe — Governor of West Dakota and former CEO of East China Inkjet who sees himself as “mostly like Trump, but different”, figuring the millions of people who spent four years masturbating to a president who “isn’t a politician” would be willing to turn on him for a similar guy who is a politician
• Greg Ponzi — Heir to the Ponzi family Fortune who met the donor threshold for this debate by trading $1 donations for fully-loaded AR-15-style rifles on his own dime.
• Tom Howard — Senator from North Carolina and person of color whose support base is the “Enough is Enough” caucus, a group of Congressmen and Senators who report being tired of Donald Trump’s politics and who plan to vote for him in November only after several months of disdainful harumphing.
• Matt Mathers — Former governor of Pennsylvania running as a staunch critic of Donald Trump after spending all four years of the man’s presidency suckling at his teats in hopes of a cabinet seat.
• Dwayne DeCoco — Present God Emperor of Florida and waning Republican Party golden boy. Recent accomplishments include sending a boat full of Central American refugees to the Horn of Africa and hoping they’ll die as well as passing a $32 billion dollar budget addendum that prevents state post office employees from using the word “homosexy”.
• Strom Thurmond — Running to represent Americans older than Joe Biden and Donald Trump.
• Mike Pence — Former Vice President and Trump ally turned enemy after he refused to plunge the country into a thousand years of darkness for the host of The Apprentice. Running on a platform of resurrecting all previously aborted fetuses and conscripting them into the army.
• Jay Kulakarni — CEO of some fucking company you’ve never heard of. Aspiring Donald Trump roleplayer. Somehow number two in current power rankings despite a strategy of channeling the Young Republican in your world history class eager to defend imperialism.
• The Ghost of Donald Trump — Despite lacking physical form, he’ll be the most talked about candidate. Every question will either be about him or ostensibly not about him but actually about him.

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Image

• Republican Party debate stage (24640887681).jpg by Flickr user Gage Skidmore
• Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic License