My fellow Americans,

I, Tom Z, am writing to announce my candidacy for the Presidency in the year 2016.  I feel it is my civic duty to campaign for President, and I am honored to have the opportunity to win your vote.

In these times of economic and social crisis, it is imperative that we elect a leader that represents the best interests of you, the American public.  That is why I’m running for President.  Like you, I am disgusted by these Washington insiders who work solely for the special interest groups.  Our country needs massive change, a change that can only come from the outside.  The “old boys club” on Capitol Hill needs to be eliminated, and we need a President who represents the views of the common man.

I am that candidate.

Like you, I understand the pressures of a failing economy and the toll that war has taken on our great country.  Like you, I care more about being able to pay for groceries than being able to pay the big oil companies.  Like you, I’m annoyed by the greed on Wall Street which affects all of us on Main Street.  Like you, I can’t stand to see the same old party politics while so many people struggle to pay their mortgages.  Like you, I despise our shallow values and celebrity-driven culture, and I believe that Britney’s comeback totally isn’t going to work cause she’s, like, still all crazy and obsessed with Justin Timberlake.  Like you, I struggle with contractions and don’t understand the difference between “your” and “you’re.”  And like you, I care deeply about our country and you’re children’s future.

You see, I’m just like you.  I’m a man of the people.  I’m not some Washington DC fatcat who has been entrenched on Capitol Hill for years and is out of touch with the rest of the country.  I’m no Washington insider.  In fact I’ve only been to Washington once in my life, and that was when I was 13 years old, when my mom took me to see to see the Washington Monument.  And you know what?  I thought it was overrated.  I know it has great symbolic value, but it’s just a pointy statue in the middle of some park.  You can’t climb up it and it doesn’t even have a gift shop.  What’s the big deal?  And don’t get me started on the Lincoln Memorial.  What a piece of shit.

Screw Washington DC and its fancy cars and shiny marble floors and phallic-shaped “monuments.”  I don’t care about Washington.  I care about you!  And that’s why I’m running for President.  We need a leader who shares the values of the average American, and who understands the struggles that we all go through on a daily basis.  I am that leader.  I don’t go to fancy yacht parties or fact-finding missions in Darfur.  I go to work every morning and bind and collate sales reports for a marketing team at a company that sells axle-rods to the riding lawnmower industry.  I don’t read the Wall Street Journal and trade stocks; I read US Weekly and trade sarcastic barbs about Paris Hilton’s vagina.  Actually, I don’t even know how to read.  I just look at the pictures and assume the worst.  I’m not some stuck up Washington elitist who believes in rainbows and butterflies and economic stimulus packages!

I won’t try to impress you with creative speeches or clever rhetoric.  I know you’re sick of all the political spin that has dominated our country for the past two decades, so I won’t try to make your head hurt by saying lots of sentences with tons of big words in them.  I care too much about you, the American public!  Plus, I’m borderline illiterate.  Some people have called me functionally retarded, but in reality my IQ is a solid 86.2, putting me right on par with the average Walmart shopper.

Did I mention I shop at Walmart?  Yep, I’m just like you.  Oh, those Washington DC fatcats have tried to take me to fancy stores like Crate & Barrel or Pier 1, but I looked them right in the eyes and told them, “what are you, a faggot?”  Because that’s how the average American would’ve handled the situation, and I’ll be damned if I let these party politics affect me from doing my job of serving the American people!  This has earned me quite the reputation around Washington as a “renegade.”  Just as Rage Against the Machine were renegades of funk, I’m the renegade of Washington.  But that’s OK, because I know that I don’t work for other politicians or Rage Against the Machine.  I work for you!  I shop at Walmart and I buy my pretzels in 20-gallon jars because we are in a recession!

I may be running for President, but I take offense to the word politician.  I’m no politician.  I’m just an ordinary guy.  I didn’t go to politician school or pass some magical politician test.  I can’t even spell the word politician without help from my computer’s spellcheck function.  I dropped out of school in eight grade to work in my family’s shipping and packaging business, bubble-wrapping dinette sets for average Americans just like you.  And as President, I promise to bubble-wrap our country and protect you from the ill effects of an economy that has been kicked around in the back of a UPS truck.  I promise to submerge terrorists into a refrigerator box filled with Styrofoam peanuts, until they have inhaled massive amounts of asbestos and are no longer able to plot attacks against America.  I promise to hand-deliver a better America by 8AM on a Saturday morning without requesting a signature, while speaking in vague metaphors that don’t really make sense but can be interpreted however you, the American people, choose!

By electing me as President, you’ll be scoring a touchdown for progress!  Because like you, I’m a huge sports fan, and believe that athletes deserve the type of admiration and respect that hypothetically should be reserved for teachers and law enforcement.  I’m not some Washington elitist who thinks that all laws need to be upheld!  I occasionally jaywalk, just like you!  Sometimes I fall behind on my credit card bills and write them angry letters saying I never got my statement that month, even though I did get it and just couldn’t afford to pay.  One time I got hammered and drove home from the bar and struck a small child with my SUV.  I didn’t stop to see what happened, but I found out the next day that the kid had died.  Mothers Against Drunk Driving went on the local news and demanded that the perpetrator turn himself in, but I never told anyone what I did, because I don’t cater to the special interest groups!

The old boys club in Washington thinks it’s so great!  They go out to $1000 dinners and discuss politics as usual.  I, on the other hand, don’t play that game.  I usually eat cut up hot dogs that I dump into a bowl of mac and cheese, and once in awhile I treat myself to some Arby’s.  I occasionally steal the sports section of my neighbor’s newspaper, and then when he asks me about it, I play dumb, like, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Jim.”  I don’t shower on Sundays and just hose myself down with Tag Body Spray if I need to go somewhere.  I’m often seen picking my nose in public and I have been known to cut in front of old ladies in line at the supermarkets.  It’s 3PM, I just woke up an hour ago, and in just a few more hours I’ll be blackout drunk on low-grade grain alcohol.  I go out to bars and hit on woman and it’s really creepy.  I don’t pay my taxes and I haven’t given my ex-wife her court-ordered alimony payments in 6 months.  I refuse to participate in such fiscal irresponsibility, and as your President, I would lower all your taxes by 50% while simultaneously investing billions of dollars into infrastructure and children.  Of course, I’ll need a calculator to figure all this economic stuff out, because like you, I fuckin’ hate math!  I think it’s boring and I never really got it.  I’m not huge on science or history, either!  This isn’t high school, it’s the school of America!

When I told a group of young parents at a diner the other day that I was running for President, one of the young mothers asked me, “Are you high?  Leave me alone!”  It’s sad that we live in a country where drug use is so prevalent that this mother just assumed I was high.  And I can’t stand the fact that our country has become so divided by party politics that this woman would sooner ask me to leave her alone than discuss the real issues facing America.  I’m running for President in order to make a change.  As President, I’ll take the lead from the American public and stop succumbing to pressure from the big drug companies.  In fact, I’ll take all medicine out of stores and lock all doctors into concentration camps.  We don’t need those fatcats charging us $75 then telling us to just rest up and take some Advil.  Not in this economy!

You might be asking, “Tom, why are you announcing your candidacy for President 8 years before the election?”  The answer is simple:  I don’t know anything about politics.  I don’t understand how the political process works or how to campaign or even how to fill out the necessary paperwork in order to officially enter the Presidential race.  That’s because I’m not some elitist Washington insider who participates in party politics or knows his own social security number.

I’m just an ordinary guy, like you.  In fact, I’m even less than you.  I’m a goddamn idiot.  And together, we can turn this country into the America we all want to see.  An America where the economy is stable, an America where everyone can afford gasoline and adequate healthcare, an America where we’re not engaged in a never-ending war, an America where pints are a dollar and everybody gets laid!

Vote Tom Z in 2016!  Together, we can make it happen!