Mountain Dew for President

Could a mouse-dissolving, toddler pepper-upper be the last, best hope for the GOP?

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Jin Lee / Bloomberg / Getty Images

I hadn’t given Mountain Dew much thought, but like many of you I was unsatisfied with the Republican presidential field and was looking for something more, something that could excite me and get the job done. As we have run out of sacrificial frontrunners, I decided to give the Dew another look.

I liked what I saw, even if I don’t particularly care for the taste.

Two items in the news this past week have convinced me that Mountain Dew, while only a carbonated beverage, has everything we seem to be looking for in a leader these days.

You can tell a lot about a person or thing by how he, she or it acts when under attack, and Mountain Dew’s defensive behavior is a profile in courage. Facing a lawsuit by an Illinois man who claimed he found a dead mouse in his pop, Mountain Dew disregarded the possible ramifications to its culinary reputation and simply told the truth: the man could not have found a mouse or any other organic matter in that can because the highly corrosive soda would have dissolved it, turning it into a “‘jelly-like’ substance.”

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This brave act speaks to character but also to steadfast opposition to frivolous litigation and, more broadly, to our Culture of Complaint. Consider, too, the ice cold finality with which the beverage dispatches foreign intruders. Why erect electrified fences along the border when a moat of Mountain Dew would be just as effective and more refreshing?

Child beauty pageants have long been a defining symbol of our national exceptionalism (don’t tell these girls they can’t be women — not in America!) but I didn’t realize until last week that Mountain Dew paid such an important role. A much-tweeted clip from TLC’s Toddlers and Tiaras revealed that come nap time, some of the littlest princesses need a boost to shake their unripened booties. When endless Pixie Stix don’t do the trick, pageant moms turn to “go-go juice” — a carbonated green beverage that presumably only a signed product placement deal prevented from being properly identified. As demonstrated on camera, just two big gulps of high-fructose, caffeinated citric acid turned one tiny tuckered contestant into a whirling dervish of downhome sexytime.

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If the Dew can do that for a 6-year-old, imagine how it could rev up our sluggish economy, electro-prodding our long-term lazy to get off the couch and go-go get a job!

And Mountain Dew is 100% American, originally brewed by two boys from Tennessee and currently sweetened with the nectar of pure heartland corn. Born in 1948, it has Baby Boom credentials and youth appeal, with its Code Red, Pitch Black and various Game Fuel editions. And don’t forget: it dissolves mice.

Vote Mountain Dew today or another Tuesday if you live somewhere other than New Hampshire. Because if you don’t, Romney wins.

The writer has not been compensated for this endorsement, does not have any financial interest in PepsiCo or its affiliates and certainly does not have 10,000 cases of Mountain Dew buried in his backyard in anticipation of a worldwide shortage. He scarcely even drinks the stuff, except while composing this piece, which has been edited down from the original 126,000 words.