Saturday, November 8, 2008

Why Barack Obama owes the Borg

Barack Obama owes the Borg for his victory in the 2008 US Presidential Election. No, this isn't some rant about "mindless drones" or a comment that "Resistance is futile." Instead, it is a reasonable reflection that Obama's rise to power began at least partially because of the most famous resident of the Delta Quadrant.

Obama in 2004 was an Illinois State Senator running for the US Senate just four years after being handily defeated in a run for a House seat. Obama's Republican opponent in that 2004 Senate race was Jack Ryan, an up-and-coming investment banker who hoped to ride GW Bush's coattails into Washington. (Note that this Jack Ryan is not the Tom Clancy character.)

By all accounts, Ryan was running an intriguing race against the relatively unknown Obama. Then a couple muck-raking news organizations successfully petitioned to have Ryan's sealed divorce records made public. The most scandalous revelation was the Ryan's ex-wife claimed that Ryan had taken her to sex clubs in several cities, intending for them to have sex in public.

Humilated, Ryan withdrew from the race about 90 days before the election, forcing Republicans to come up with (after briefly considering Mike Ditka) an alternative candidate in perennial office-seeker Alan Keyes, who was trounced by 52 points. It's not known if Ryan could have beaten the charismatic young Obama, who catapulted his candidacy into national recognition, but it almost certainly would have been a closer race.

So who was Ryan's wife, who claimed he tried to force her to have sex in public? None other than Jeri Ryan -- aka Star Trek Voyager's resident Borg drone Seven of Nine.

4 comments:

Rob Roy said...

Now ya see, if the Borg ran on a platform of "Change We Can Believe In" instead of "You Will Be Assimilated", they could avoid more needless space massacres, maybe open a few recruitment headquarters and let the mindless masses just walk right in. Nail some posters of Jeri Ryan up, spread rumors about sex clubs, and the next thing ya know it'll be the United Federation of Pod-people (wouldn't wanna have to change the logo, ya see.)

Annette said...

better still, if Jack Ryan had more self control, Jeri might have been our next 1st Lady.

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