Barbie and Ficus dream ticket

Have you heard? Barbie is running for president. The sexy blonde doll has her own Web site, complete with a “Girls’ Bill of Rights” and fashion advice about how to turn the heads of voters. Mattel, the toy maker, says the idea was dreamed up by two feminist groups to broaden the “vision” of little girls and get them thinking about “what’s possible.”

Pat Schroeder is outraged. The former Colorado congresswoman, who ran for president in 1988, fumed to The New York Times, “So why should we feel great about a message that says a woman can go to the White House if she looks like Barbie?”

Less than 50 percent of eligible Americans cast ballots in the 1996 presidential election. Nobody expects the arrow to trend back up with Al Gore and George W. Bush heading this fall’s ballot. Into this void of voter apathy, creeps nonsense. Among the fanciful Barbie running mates being promoted as write-in candidates on the Internet and elsewhere are basketball player Michael Jordan, wrestler Rick Flair and Jello Biafra, former lead singer for the Dead Kennedys.

Even a plant.

“The United States Congress is full of babbling idiots and bumbling morons,” said filmmaker Michael Moore in announcing the candidacy of a potted plant commonly known as “Ficus” in a write-in campaign on both the Republican and Democratic Party June 6 primary ballots in New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District. Moore, who first gained fame for the movie “Roger and Me,” said there would be similar Ficus write-in candidacies in 20 other congressional districts around the country.

“In a country where the majority no longer votes, writing in Ficus will give the disenfranchised voter a chance to cast a vote for “None of the Above,” Moore said.

The Holy Grail of democracy’s discontents is the ballot option “None of the Above.” Floated decades ago by The Nation, the leading leftist magazine, the proposal would enable voters to opt for NOTA when confronted by a choice between a Democratic Party baffoon and a GOP sleaze ball artist. Should NOTA voters win a majority, a second run-off election would be held with new nominees, plus the NOTA option.

Proponents have argued that NOTA would reduce the temptation by major party candidates to resort to negative campaigns. By giving politically turned-off Americans a chance to voice their displeasure by casting a ballot, rather than staying home and complaining that the country is going to hell in a hand basket, voter turnout might be reversed. NOTA would seem to be a healthy antidote for states dominated by one party, or in congressional districts where the incumbent is uncontested.

The state of Nevada has included a non-binding NOTA option on its ballot since 1976. During that span, None of the Above has won four times. In 1980, NOTA finished ahead of Sen. Ted Kennedy in the Democratic presidential primary and George Bush in the GOP primary. If nothing else, NOTA would give disgusted voters the chance of voicing their loud disapproval when an election pits two knaves running against each other. That certainly was the case in 1991, when the Louisiana governor’s race matched former Klansman David Duke against Edwin Edwards, one of the most corrupt individuals elected to major office in any state.

Consumer advocate Ralph Nader, who is running for president as a Green Party candidate, believes NOTA is a serious reform proposal that would take back political power from the major parties. Nader has proposed that the option be pushed in states where the Legislature and governor can be circumvented by referendum. Rep. Belinda Gerry, an independent Maine House member from Auburn, introduced a NOTA bill in 1997, but the measure came out of committee with an ought not pass recommendation and was killed.

Julie Flynn, Maine’s deputy secretary of state for elections and corporations, says NOTA surfaces from time to time. There are reasons for opposing the idea, the cost of additional state elections being the most widely cited. Trivializing the freedom to vote also comes to mind. In theory, a frivilous write-in could affect a close election, although Flynn said that has not happened in recounts during her tenure.

Harm or not, it’s hard to make the case than a citizen who makes others wait in line at the polls so they can write in the name Barbie or Ficus on an election ballot is advancing the cause of democracy.

John S. Day is a Bangor Daily News columnist based in Washington, D.C. His e-mail address is zanadume@aol.com.