This is how the system really works. Lots of rich Democrats splash out money on advertising campaigns and do their best to dig up dirt on each other. The one with the silliest name (Tsongas) drops out through lack of money. Every so often someone suggests Teddy Kennedy, just to make the other candidates look good by comparison. Bill Clinton commits adultery, smokes pot, kills 200 with a chain saw etc. but it's in fashion this year so that's all right isn't it. Since everyone else is even worse, Clinton gets nominated. Meanwhile, George Bush is being challenged by various raving fascists who want to know why he hasn't nuked China yet. Despite having Dan Quayle round his neck, he brushes these challenges off fairly easily, and even shrugs off a last-ditch attempt by Hercule Perot. Unfortunately Nero Wolfe isn't standing, or he would have got the nomination. So we go into the final with Bush against Clinton. Now it gets really dirty. Bush's mob make up various stories proving that Clinton is (a) Black (b) Chinese (c) Mentally Ill (d) Dead (e) A Communist and (f) Neil Kinnock. In return Clinton points out that Bush is an incompetent wally who is unfit even to run a computing service. Stalemate. So the voters decide, and the winner is Abraham Lincoln who turns out not to be dead after all, at least not in comparison with Ronald Reagan, so everyone lives happily ever after.
(From the "Rest" of RHF)