It is with great enthusiasm that I announce my bid for the Democratic nomination to the Presidency of the U.S. Now, I know what you are thinking: "How can she possibly think she is qualified to run?" Well, my response is that I am no less qualified than any other Democrat in the running. I may have no political experience, but neither does Al Sharpton. John Edwards and Carol Moseley Braun both have one term on me and the rest of the field has not accomplished anything with its experience.

I would also contend that my lack of experience gives me an advantage because no one can say that I am a Washington insider. I haven't had time to get labeled as a crook (Braun), a perennial loser (Gephardt) or as too similar to Bush (Lieberman). This fact allows me to say, "I can clean up the mess in Washington because I am not one of them." Those of you who know me would say that my father's intense political involvement would disqualify me from running as an outsider, but that didn't seem to faze Dubya. Despite having a father as President and attending Andover and Yale, he has managed to portray himself as an ordinary man from Texas. Despite the fact that I grew up ten minutes from Washington, D.C., I have spent all of last year right here in Amherst, Mass., so I can officially label myself as a rural citizen of western Massachusetts.

Okay, you may be saying to yourself: "She may be able to escape the experience question, but how about the Constitutional question?" The Constitution states that you have to be at least 35 years old to be President, and at the tender age of 19, I fall a bit short. My answer is that if Bush can ignore the Constitution and lie to the American people about reasons for going to war (for those of you who still believe that there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, I would contend that Clinton didn't actually have an affair with Monica Lewinsky, it was just a vast right wing conspiracy), I can fudge a few years.

Now, that we have established my qualifications, you are probably still asking yourself, "so how does she expect to get elected?" My plan is to play the media's darling while slandering all the other candidates in the running. The media loves underdogs and minorities. As a college student, I am a huge underdog. I am also both a woman and Jewish, giving me two powerful characteristics. I know that a mud-slinging campaign is necessary because we all know that Americans love to see Americans humiliated and insulted, like on "American Idol."

While most politicians steal popular issues from other people, I intend on stealing the limelight from others. As some of you may know, Annika Sorenstam garnered quite a bit of attention this summer by playing against male professional golfers in the Colonial. I will capitalize on her popularity by making her my vice presidential running mate. I know that she is not an American citizen, but, like I said earlier, we can bend some constitutional rules.

Some of you may be asking yourselves: "Okay, but where does she stand on the issues?" I plan to lower taxes because we all know Americans love lower taxes (that's why they keep voting Republican). I also plan on spending lots of money on education to ensure that no child gets left behind (unless of course, I need to spend the money on defense to kill more innocent Iraqis). I would also like to say that I have not burned any American flags, I know the words to the pledge of allegiance and I eat freedom fries, so I am patriotic.

My fellow Americans, I submit to you my winning philosophy. It is now your choice. You can either vote for no one (which most of you are inclined to do), vote for Bush (who will continue to defend corporations against the evil consumers and environmentalists, send Americans to be killed overseas, and govern through Condoleeza Rice), vote for a gutless Democrat (Kerry, Edwards, Lieberman, Gephardt), an antiwar fire breather (Dean), someone who has no chance of winning (Kucinich, Braun, Graham, Sharpton) or vote for the Sidman/Sorenstam ticket.