E Pluribus Wiggum (S19, E10-410)

"Mr. Lincoln, why did they make this awful episode?"  He did not actually say.

Plot Summary
Homer is set to start another diet, but before it begins Homer goes on a binge through Fast Food Boulevard.  He sees a public trash can nearby and decides to dump out his food garbage so Marge doesn't find out.  While he's there, he figures he'll clean out the rest of his car as well.  He throws in a leaky car battery and a still-lit match after lighting a cigar.  As he drives off, that combination of trash ignites a gas main below, and the entire boulevard explodes.  At a later town meeting, with everyone mourning the loss of the road, Homer convinces everyone they can rebuild, and Mayor Quimby decides to put a bond issue on it, to be voted on during their Presidential primary election.  However, that isn't for a few months still, so Quimby moves it up to next Tuesday, making it the first primary of the election season.

News outlets, as well as the candidates themselves, learn of this, and flock en masse to Springfield to get voters on their side, as well as voters in general.  None of the candidates look particularly good, though, and the media's constant presence becomes an annoyance as well.  They notice that the Simpson family is still undecided, and swarm their household trying to get them to pick someone.  Homer, as well as most of the town, has had enough.  He knows the media simply just wants to crown a favorite from the primary, and so he proposes that the town put in someone ridiculous as a write in vote.  The next morning, its learned that a surprise write in candidate won the primary and is favored by over half the likely vote: Ralph Wiggum.

Homer is particularly thrilled of the success of his plan, and goes full steam into getting Ralph through the rest of the primaries.  Lisa, however, is stunned by these developments.  Ralph is too dumb to be President?  That hasn't stopped anyone before.  The constitution won't let someone so young be President?  That thing died with the Patriot Act.  To make matters worse, both the Democrats and Republicans are trying to rally Ralph to their side, knowing that Ralph is the likely winner in the Presidential race.  As both sides try to swarm and convince Ralph to join their side, Lisa is able to get them off him to talk to him privately.  Lisa is once again stunned to learn that Ralph knows exactly what he's doing, and he'll unite both parties under his wing.  Lisa willingly relents, and Ralph ends up being sponsored by both parties.

Quick Review
I did not like this episode.  It had a couple of decent moments, like Homer's run through Fast Food Boulevard, or the moment Homer rallies everyone to nominate Ralph in classic Springfield style, but the heavy handed mockery of politics and political media, once again, fails to provide any decent humor, and the attempts were often tough to sit through.  Again, its not like its impossible to do political satire well, but for me that is usually the case when political satire is not the focus of the episode.  This episode fails to escape that fault, and suffers tremendously as a result.

Final Score: 4.1