My Sitter, My President

Finally, a political poll result I couldn't resist digesting in all its usually boring detail.

Except it wasn't.

As reported in USA Today, Parents Magazine commissioned a poll which asked which of the presidential candidates of both parties parents most and least trusted to baby-sit their children. (It was conducted by Global Strategy Group, a national polling and consulting firm.)

A full 20% of respondents said they would not trust ANY of the announced candidates with their children. That's comforting, isn't it?

26%--the largest number in the poll--said they would most trust Hillary Rodham Clinton to baby-sit their children.
So Hillary gets the baby sitter vote, right?

Not so fast.

25 %--the largest negative number--said of all the candidates, the one they would least trust their children with was...Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Once again, Clinton winds up squarely on both sides of an issue.

Mitt Romney may be polling well with the flat-earth, let's-go-back-to-the-fifties types, but he can kiss the "could he baby-sit our kids?" vote goodbye. Only 5% in the poll would drive off for the night with Mitt in charge at the house. And really, why should it be otherwise? Romney is a man who has change his mind about just about everything that has ever crossed it, so fair for a parent to wonder if mid-way through the evening, Mitt might just take off, having decided that, on second thought, this baby-sitting thing is not for me.

But then, John Edwards only drew 5%, too. Surprising, too, when you think about it. This is a man, a dad, who has young kids at home now. Knows a thing or two about children. And hasn't he spoken eloquently for years about "Two Americas," one with good dependable sitters, and one with crappy sitters who never call you back, have their boyfriends over, and go through your stuff? Or was that "Two Americas" thing about poverty and lack of economic justice? Oh, wait, I think it was...

Rudy "9/11" Giulliani only polled slightly better at 9%. Maybe his past is finally catching up with him. No, not his "Ask Me About 9/11" past, but his disttinctly non-heroic family past. This is a man whose kids hate him, and are supporting other candidates. A man who used a press conference to inform his second-wife (he's on #3 now) that he intended to divorce her. Clearly those are the kind of traditional family-values that attracted the endorsement of that values Vicar himself, Pat Robertson.

Neither Dennis Kucinich nor Mike Gravel registered in the poll. Pity. Mike Gravel may strike many as that nutty, grouchy uncle in the Democratic debates, but at least you know he'd get the kids to bed on time, the playroom would be spotless, and their teeth would be well-brushed. Their shoes would probably be lined up by the bed according to size, too. Gravel would make Mrs. Doubtfire seem like an addled substitute teacher. "I said lights out now or we'll get out of bed and realign those shoes all over again!"

But enough about which presidential candidate would make the best baby-sitter.
The important thing is that one of them will be president by this time a year from now.
Replacing a president who desperately needed a good sitter, and who should never have been left alone in the house...