Faced with terrible choices for president, it's time to throw caution to the wind

“A third-party vote is a vote for Donald Trump.”

With 2023 ending, I’m eagerly awaiting the deluge of text messages, social media posts, and phone calls browbeating me into voting for the lesser of two evils. For the third presidential election in a row, I’m refusing to support either of the two major party terrible choices.

With the exception of a handful of wealthy elite, nobody wins if Donald Trump becomes dictator. As Dana Carvey, playing Ross Perot, said during an SNL presidential parody, “Everyone wants a totalitarian dictatorship. But who’s going to pay for it?”

That doesn’t mean I’m “Riding with Biden.” President Biden kept many of the worst Trump immigration and anti-trade policies, which increased inflation and hurt the economy. Biden, like Trump, is too old to serve another four years in office.

Recent polling shows that I’m not alone in this decision. A November Quinnipiac presidential poll has independent candidates Robert Kennedy Jr. and Cornel West winning 19% and 6% of the vote, compared to 36% for Biden and 35% for Trump.

This poll doesn’t include Green Party candidate Jill Stein, nor any of the ridiculously named Libertarian presidential candidates: Lars Mapstead, Michael Rectenwald, Mike ter Maat, Jacob Hornberger, and Hingle McCringleberry. (McCringleberry is a Key & Peele football player who gets flagged for too many touchdown hip thrusts. The other names are real).

Third-party candidates have a history of higher poll numbers months before an election, only to have those numbers drop to less than 2% when early voting begins in October.

Independent voters want more than two options, but have a hard time voting for crazy third-party candidates.

RFK Jr. polls well because of the Kennedy name, but his support shrinks once voters realize that he’s a notorious anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist. Socialist professor Cornel West has no political experience, unless you count his movie role as leader of the Zion High Council in “Matrix Reloaded.”

Jill Stein believes that Wi-Fi signals harm children and is too cozy with Russian leader Vladimir Putin. Most Libertarian candidates want to end the federal government and smell like cigarettes and Axe body spray.

With 70% of Americans opposing Trump and Biden, the need for a strong third-party presidential candidate has never been greater. The best option is the centrist No Labels bipartisan presidential ticket.

No Labels will soon have ballot access in about 20 states, which is no small feat considering that Kanye West spent over $13 million for ballot access in 13 states in 2020. No candidates have been announced, but former Gov. Larry Hogan and Jon Huntsman Jr., along with current Sen. Joe Manchin, are being considered for the positions.

I have no problems voting for any of these candidates. A No Labels New Hampshire press conference featuring Huntsman and Manchin showed that despite their differences, both men are more than capable and would be ready to serve and work together if elected.

My concern is that none of the current crop of No Labels bipartisan centrist candidates can beat Trump. That’s because common sense, problem-solving candidates are portrayed as clueless Ned Flanders types who can’t relate to normal people.

President George H. W. Bush never said the words “wouldn’t be prudent” or “slip sliding back to the middle.” Everyone thinks Bush said it because of Carvey’s impeccable impression of Bush.

Jason Sudeikis actually made presidential candidate Mitt Romney more likable, portraying him on Saturday Night Live as a dad-joking, milk-drinking prankster who never uttered a curse word. If you add a mustache, you get the more recent Ted Lasso character, also portrayed by Sudeikis.

In the recent book “Romney: A Reckoning,” Mitt admitted to being too cautious during the 2012 presidential campaign because he was haunted by the mistakes of his father, George Romney, who dropped out of the 1968 presidential campaign after newspapers skewered him for saying that he was brainwashed by official government reports on the Vietnam War.

Time to throw caution to the wind. You need a bombastic, over-the-top personality to defeat a former president who lied over 30,000 times while in office and who is running for a non- consecutive second term despite having four active indictments and 91 felony charges.

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson would easily defeat Trump, Biden and anyone else foolish enough to run against him. A 2022 poll showed candidate Johnson winning in a rockslide, with over 55%, with Trump and Biden each with less than 30%.

Johnson wouldn’t be the first wrestler or entertainer elected to public office. Jesse Ventura became the governor of Minnesota in 1998. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who appeared with Ventura in the movie “Predator,” became California governor after beating Gov. Gray Davis in the 2003 recall election.

Johnson has said that he would run for president after his acting career is finished. Like Ronald Reagan, Johnson is one monkey short of a “Bedtime for Bonzo.” The Rock’s film career is drifting harder than the cars in “The Fast and The Furious.”

Johnson’s recent TV show “Young Rock” takes place in the future, where he’s running for president, with flashbacks to his real childhood in poverty in Hawaii. It only makes sense that Johnson gives his now-cancelled TV show a proper ending by being an actual presidential candidate.

Johnson wouldn’t be the only world leader who went from a TV president to the real deal. Actor Vladymyr Zelenskyy starred as president in the Ukrainian TV show “Servant of the People.” After the show ended in 2019, Zelenskyy won a landslide election for Ukrainian president.

When I’m 80 years old, I want to tell my grandchildren that I remember the day that the Rock stood tall against The Donald on the presidential debate stage. Liberty and democracy was saved when The Rock told that jabroni to stick his bigotry and racism up his candy … cane.

Ryan Cooper is a Missouri State graduate and former political columnist for the Springfield News-Leader. Ryan currently sells newspaper subscriptions in locations across America.

This article originally appeared on Springfield News-Leader: Ryan Cooper: In race for president, time to throw caution to the wind