Stephen Colbert’s quixotic quest for the presidency–in South Carolina–has been thwarted by the Democratic Party.

Stephen Colbert’s satirical run for the presidency has run into its first roadblock — his bid to be on the ballot in the South Carolina Democratic presidential primary was rejected on Thursday.

The party’s executive council voted 13-3 to refuse Colbert’s application for a spot on the ballot.

“The general sense of the council was that he wasn’t a serious candidate and that was why he wasn’t selected to be on the ballot,” said Joe Werner, the party’s director. “There was discussion — I wouldn’t call it a heated debate — but there was discussion about it.”

Julian Sanchez suggests that this might be because he might win it:

Am I alone in suspecting that one serious consideration behind the decision to keep Stephen Colbert off the South Carolina Democratic primary ballot was that he might well win it? Or, at the very least, beat many of the “serious” candidates? After all, that’s the only way adding him to the ballot would help him “make a mockery” of the process, as SC Dems fear.

Frankly, I doubt that this was the case. There’s actually a set of criteria that the South Carolina Democratic party has for President, which are described in the article above as:

The Democrats had to decide whether they considered Colbert to be a bona fide Democrat who is nationally viable and has spent time campaigning in the state.

Given that Colbert has firmly announced that he is only running in South Carolina and that, to my knowledge, he has not done any campaigning, he simply didn’t meet the minimum criteria necessary to be on the Democratic ballot in South Carolina. That may not be the most subversive opinion in the world, but it is, alas, probably the correct one.

Update: Apparently, I was incorrect about Stephen Colbert not actively campaigning in South Carolina.

Stephen Colbert has filed for the South Carolina Democratic primary.

Stephen Colbert’s fanciful White House bid took a real step Thursday. It’s up to South Carolina Democrats to decide whether to take him seriously.

Colbert, who poses as a conservative talk-show host on the Comedy Central cable network, filed to get on the ballot as a Democratic candidate in his native South Carolina. His campaign paid a $2,500 filing fee just before the noon deadline, said state Democratic Party Chairwoman Carol Fowler.

Whether he’ll appear on the ballot will be decided by party officials later Thursday. The host of “The Colbert Report” doesn’t appear to meet the party’s viable candidate qualification. And it’s unclear if he would meet the requirement that candidates actively campaign in the state.

Colbert did appear Sunday at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, telling several hundred fans he would, if elected, “crush the state of Georgia.” He also received a key to the capital city and the mayor declared him South Carolina’s “favorite son.”

Unless the primary ballot will consist only of Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards, Colbert would appear as “viable” as anyone. Certainly, he’s got a better shot at attracting support than Dennis Kucinich and he’s polling ahead of Bill Richardson, Joe Biden, and Chris Dodd, too.

It’s apparently silly season at Rasmussen, which continues to release results of absurd polling questions.

Given a choice between Colbert running as a Democrat and Republican Congressman Ron Paul, 36% of voters prefer Colbert while Paul attracts 32%. Twenty-one percent (21%) say they’d vote for some other candidate while 10% are not sure.

If the choice is between Colbert as a Republican and Democratic Congressman Dennis Kucinich, it’s Colbert 37%, Kucinich 32%. Nineteen percent (19%) would vote for some other candidate and 11% are not sure.

In each match-up, Colbert’s adversary attracts little more than half his partisan base. Paul attracts just 51% of GOP voters. Kucinich attracts 53% of Democrats.

So, in a race between a well known television comedian and two largely unknown politicians, the comedian wins? Who’d o’ thunk?

Steven Taylor guesses that it’s “no fun to be the real candidates who are considered joke-worthy enough themselves to be included in the poll in the first place.” But, hey, it’s publicity.

Comedian Stephen Colbert is doing quite well in the latest Rasmussen poll.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that Colbert is preferred by 13% of voters as an independent candidate challenging Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Rudy Giuliani. The survey was conducted shortly after Colbert’s surprise announcement that he is lusting for the Oval Office. The result is similar when Fred Thompson is the Republican in the three-way race. With Thompson as the GOP candidate, Colbert earns 12% of the vote.

Interesting if silly; after all, Colbert isn’t running as an independent and he wouldn’t actually get nearly that many votes in a real election. Not only would many of these people not vote, period, but those who do almost invariably wind up making a choice between the major party candidates.

More enlightening, perhaps:

Colbert does particularly well with the younger voters most likely to be watching his show and therefore most aware of his myriad presidential-like qualities. In the match-up with Giuliani and Clinton, Colbert draws 28% of likely voters aged 18-29. He draws 31% of that cohort when his foes are Thompson and Clinton. In both match-ups, Colbert has more support with young voters than the GOP candidate.

The crosstabs are available only to premium members and no comparable figure for the Democrats is included in the summary. But, clearly, the under 30 crowd prefers comedians to Republicans.

Comedian Stephen Colbert’s truthy run for the presidency may run afoul of federal election rules.

Federal law bars corporations from contributing to candidates, either through donations or in-kind contributions such as free use of goods or services. Media organizations are permitted to feature presidential candidates in covering campaigns. But no precedent exists for a television network promoting and fostering a candidacy of one of its own talk-show hosts, said Lawrence M. Noble, a former general counsel for the Federal Election Commission. And comedian Pat Paulsen’s 1968 candidacy predated current campaign finance regulations.

“The real problem comes in the fact that he actually has his own show, talking about his campaign, paid for by a network,” Noble said. “These are the kind of things on slow days you’d debate until the late afternoon at the FEC, but there are serious questions that come up. In theory, he could end up having some campaign finance problems.”

While he has talked about his candidacy publicly only in character — as the combative faux-talk-show host who favors “truthiness” on “The Colbert Report” — Colbert is taking formal steps that are consistent with an actual presidential candidacy. He has begun collecting signatures to get himself placed on both the Democratic and Republican presidential primary ballots in South Carolina. And while he has said he’s in the race to run, not to win, he has talked about trying to win delegates to the Democratic National Convention.

“I think a lot of people are asking whether — they say, ‘Is this, is this real,’ you know?” Colbert said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “And to which I would say to everybody, this is not a dream, OK? You’re not going to wake up from this, OK? I’m far realer than Sam Brownback, let me put it that way.”

After being alerted to a possible election law violation, he and the network dropped plans to post signature forms on Comedy Central’s Web site, and instead created a bare-bones Web site for official campaign activity, www.colbert08.org. On Thursday’s program, he held up what he said was a letter from a Washington election lawyer, and made the legal framework part of his schtick. “In accepting corporate money, I promise to respect federal election laws the same way I respect the must-shower-before-swimming law at the Y,” Colbert said. “As a candidate, I am under no obligation to promote the zesty, robust taste of Doritos brand tortilla chips, regardless of how great a snack they may be for lunchtime, munch time, anytime.”

He also said that, because of election laws, Doritos would technically be sponsoring not his candidacy but his program’s coverage of his candidacy. “It’s illegal for my crunch money here to pay for the campaign, but it is legal for it to pay for my show, and the show can report on my campaign,” he said. “Host: ‘Eat them.’ Candidate: ‘I just happen to like ‘em.’ “

Every time this sort of nonsense comes up, I’m reminded of the idiocy of our election laws and the harm done by John McCain in trying to fix the system. Frankly, I’d rather have my candidates openly sponsored by Doritos than spending four nights a week raising money in secret and then continue that practice while in office.

Stephen Colbert has surged ahead of Bill Richardson and within a half point of Joe Biden in the latest Public Opinion Strategies poll.

He’s been “in” the race for less than a week, and already faux-pundit Stephen Colbert has surged ahead of longtime candidate Gov. Bill Richardson in one national poll gauging the race for the Democratic nod for president. And watch out Joe Biden!

The Public Opinion Strategies poll this past weekend of 1,000 likely primary voters that included Colbert’s name — as both a Democrat and Republican, as he wishes — found him drawing 2.3 percent in the Dem race nationally (though he is threatening to run only in his native South Carolina). This put his ahead of Richardson (2.1 percent), Rep. Dennis Kucininch (2.1) and, of course, Sen. Mike Gravel. And he trails Sen. Biden by just a tad (he’s at 2.7 percent). Of course he has a long way to go to catch up with the three frontrunners (you know who they are).

But Colbert fares less well among his natural constituency on the GOP side, where he draws less than one percent.

Granted that all these numbers are within the margin of sampling error, it’s still rather amusing.

Stephen Colbert is running for president.

Stephen Colbert has announced his candidacy for president on “The Colbert Report,” tossing his satirical hat into the ring of an already crowded race.

“I shall seek the office of the president of the United States,” Colbert said Tuesday on his Comedy Central show as red, white and blue balloons fell around him.

Colbert, 43, had recently satirized the coyness of would-be presidential candidates by refusing to disclose whether he would seek the country’s highest office — a refusal that often came without any prompting. Shortly before making the announcement, Colbert appeared on “The Daily Show” (the show that spawned Colbert’s spin-off) and played cagey, claiming he was only ready to consider a White House bid. He entered the studio set pulled by a bicycle pedaled by Uncle Sam and quickly pulled out a bale of hay and a bottle of beer to show that he was “an Average Joe.”

Colbert said his final decision would be announced on a “more prestigious show,” which turned out to be his own. “After nearly 15 minutes of soul-searching, I have heard the call,” said Colbert.

While his candidacy is obviously a joke, I’m not sure he wouldn’t be formidable. Celebrity goes a long way in politics and he’s got a huge following. Plus, he’d have the advantage of getting votes both from people who agree with the things he says and from those who realize he’s doing satire.

Newshogger shamanic uses the occasion to get some digs in at Ron Paul supporters, quipping, “The biggest difference between the Paul and Colbert evangelists? Colbert’s fans know their guy’s candidacy is a joke.”

UPDATE: Here’s the video, courtesy Comedy Central.

The Godfather of House Democrats has issued an edict: Stay away from Colbert.

Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), the Democratic Caucus chairman, has told new Democratic members of Congress to steer clear of Stephen Colbert, or at least his satirical Comedy Central program, “The Colbert Report.”

“He said don’t do it … it’s a risk and it’s probably safer not to do it,” said Rep. Steve Cohen. But the freshman lawmaker from Tennessee taped a segment that last week was featured in the 32nd installment of the “Better Know a District” series. Colbert asked Cohen whether he was a black woman. He isn’t.

Eyes (but thankfully, not heads) roll in Emanuel’s office when other freshmen stumble, such as the time Rep. John Yarmuth (D-Ky.) got into a debate about the merits of throwing kittens into a wood-chipper, or when Rep. Zack Space (D-Ohio) explained that he is not his predecessor, convicted felon Bob Ney (R).

Emmanuel’s dictatorial style isn’t going over well on with bloggers. Kim Priestap, noting the recent fleeing from the FOX debate in Nevada, writes, “Sheesh, the Democrats are afraid of everything and everyone. Why don’t they just boycott every single show on television and be done with it.”

The left is even more harsh. My Left Wing’s Thereisnospoon terms it “idiocy.” Preemptive Karma’s Becky wants to know, “Who wants their representatives to be a bunch of stiff, perfectly coifed politicians, anyway?” And over at CorrenteWire, Chicago Dyke proposes to engage in action with Emmanuel that would seem contraindicated by her pen name, preferably using power tools.

Having watched a few of these segments, most notably Colbert’s “interview” with DC Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, Emmanuel has a point. There are a few people in Congress so stupid one wonders how they manage to breathe. Still, unless they’re total dolts, gaining the national exposure that Colbert’s popular program offers likely offsets any short-term embarrassment over being bested by a professional comedian at his own game.

Chris Abraham finds a commenter who seems to think “The Colbert Report” is a real news talk show. And thinks that Colbert guy is right on the money.

Somehow, I’m not the slightest bit surprised.

The videos of Stephen Colbert’s appearance on “The O’Reilly Factor” and Bill O’Reilly’s appearance on “The Colbert Report” on January 18.

Bill O’Reilly and Stephen Colbert will be guests on each other’s programs on January 18.

“I’m really looking forward to speaking to a man who owes his entire career to me,” O’Reilly said.

On “The Colbert Report,” Colbert portrays a self-involved talk-show host who has tried to bring “truthiness” to the world. His character owes an obvious debt to O’Reilly, who holds court in the “no-spin zone” each evening.

On “The O’Reilly Factor,” O’Reilly portrays a … um, he hosts the top-rated program in cable news.

“I look forward to the evening,” Colbert said. “It is an honor to speak face-to-face with a broadcasting legend, and I feel the same way about Mr. O’Reilly.”

It should be interesting.

via Julian Sanchez

Seeing the success of Comedy Central’s “Daily Show” and “Colbert Report,” Fox News is working on a conservative news satire show.

Fox News Channel might air two episodes of a “Daily Show”-like program with a decidedly nonliberal bent on Saturday nights in late January, with the possibility that it could become a weekly show for the channel.

The half-hour show is executive produced by “24’s” Joel Surnow and Manny Cota and creator Ned Rice, who previously wrote for “Politically Incorrect” and “Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson” through This Just In Prods. It would take aim at what Surnow calls “the sacred cows of the left” that don’t get made as much fun of by other comedy shows. “It’s a satirical news format that would play more to the Fox News audience than the Michael Moore channel,” Surnow said. “It would tip more right as ‘The Daily Show’ tips left.”

There would certainly be an audience for such a show but the description here does not look promising. For one thing, a once-a-week format is unlikely to work. There are already a flurry of late-night comedians doing their takes on the events of the day, not to mention “Saturday Night Live” and other weekly venues. Immediacy is part of the effectiveness of these shows. Further, it’s not just the format that has done so well for Comedy Central but the hosts. Unless they find someone with the comedic timing and ability to be simultaneously likable and snarky that Stewart and Colbert possess, the show won’t make it.

Slate television critic Troy Patterson explains how to survive the comedic “interview” segment on The Colbert Report, which almost invariably makes its celebrity guests look like nitwits.

Act your age. Maybe they’re just being obliging, but many of Colbert’s guests tend to trip themselves up right out of the gate, before the host himself has even had a chance. They’re so tickled to be there that they titter, ducking their heads shyly and perhaps muttering something vaguely racy and clearly inane. Are they 12? Writers, in general, and New York Times op-ed columnists, in particular, seem especially susceptible to this affliction. After Colbert’s lead delivered a line about Ann Coulter’s speaking engagements, David Brooks blurted, “I do Phish concerts.” Whah? When a bellicose Colbert commanded Frank Rich to inveigh against President Bush (”What’s he done now?! Spin!!”), Rich grinningly produced the following: “Luckily, he isn’t doing much now. He just seems to be sort of lactating. … I don’t know where that came from.” Paul Krugman simply giggled, and simply giggling is inappropriate to the gravity of the occasion. No, you’ll be better off if you …

Laugh uproariously. Conservatives do well by taking this tack, and Bay Buchanan, chair of the Team America political action committee, was an ace. She was pushing her line on illegal immigration, arguing for a vast wall along the Mexican border, when Colbert upped the ante: “We need two walls. We need a moat. We need it filled with fire, maybe with some fireproof crocodiles in there.” I imagine that most of Colbert’s constituency thinks Buchanan to be kind of a creep, but there was an appealing jolliness in her laughing response to this line that made her seem agreeable, and her hard chuckles took the edge off his mockery. And when Colbert had had his fun, Buchanan charged right on ahead. Perhaps, being a veteran of the Reagan administration, she is inclined to …

Embrace the theater. Contrary to the gigglers, masters of this strategy allow themselves to slide smoothly into Colbert’s alternate reality and take his straight face at face value. Jesse Jackson instantly asserted control by joining the studio audience in cheering the host: “You the man.” Joe Scarborough—whose feisty MSNBC show, Scarborough Country, remains undersung as a Colbert Report inspiration—rushed down to a level where he and Colbert could banter like the showmen they are, reveling in the horseplay and proclaiming, “We are kindred spirits.” And Al Franken explained why he would enter this lion’s den almost as if he were actually talking to Bill O’Reilly: “I couldn’t very well not do it. If you don’t do your show, you just go on and call a guy a coward.” A seasoned culture warrior like Franken understands that it’s important to …

Go on the offensive. No one has done this better than CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, who went so far as to play the sparky schoolmarm and scold the host for referring to the country immediately south of the Caspian Sea as “Eye-ran.” “Ih-ran,” she said. “You didn’t run anywhere, did you?” Amanpour was relaxed and confident, game enough to engage with the Colbert persona, and sharp enough to cut past its marvelous blather and say something witty herself. The guest interviews are often only half successful as entertainment because the interviewees are off-balance, unsure of the steps of this crazy new dance. But Amanpour—accustomed, as she is, to coping with the on-screen utterances of morons, megalomaniacs, and aggressive nitwits—had the nerve to take the lead. Future Colbert guests, I urge you to study her performance closely. You might not be able to beat Stephen Colbert at his own game, but you won’t go home feeling like a loser.

Interestingly, despite The Colbert Report being a comedy, this is remarkably similar to the advice Slate’s Jack Shafer gave three-plus years ago for dealing with Tim Russert on “Meet the Press.”

Adam Sternbergh has a long feature on comedian Stephen Colbert which is the cover story of the current New York Magazine. This part particularly stood out:

During one taping I attended, Colbert did a bit about eating disorders that ended with his addressing the camera and saying flatly, “Girls, if we can’t see your ribs, you’re ugly.” The audience laughed. I laughed. The line was obviously, purposefully outrageous. But it was weird to think that this no-doubt self-identified progressive-liberal crowd was howling at a line that, if it had been delivered verbatim by Ann Coulter on Today, would have them sputtering with rage.

In fact, here’s a list of statements by either Stephen Colbert or Ann Coulter. See if you can tell who said what (answers are at the end of the story):

1. “Even Islamic terrorists don’t hate America like liberals do. They don’t have the energy. If they had that much energy, they’d have indoor plumbing by now.”

2. “There’s nothing wrong with being gay. I have plenty of friends who are going to hell.”

3. “I just think Rosa Parks was overrated. Last time I checked, she got famous for breaking the law.”

4. “Being nice to people is, in fact, one of the incidental tenets of Christianity, as opposed to other religions whose tenets are more along the lines of ‘Kill everyone who doesn’t smell bad and answer to the name Muhammad.’ ”

5. “I believe that everyone has the right to their own religion, be you Hindu, Muslim, or Jewish. I believe there are infinite paths to accepting Jesus Christ as your personal savior.”

6. “[North Korea] is a major threat. I just think it would be fun to nuke them and have it be a warning to the rest of the world.”

7. “Isn’t an agnostic just an atheist without balls?”

Of course, I’m not trying to equate Coulter with Colbert. For starters, Coulter is a shrill, abusive demagogue and Colbert just plays one on TV. But with Coulter, there’s always been a sturdy suspicion that she is playing a character (like Colbert) and amping up the obnoxious rhetoric for maximum effect (like Colbert).

I think that’s right. Coulter has gotten increasingly outrageous in recent years and, while that has led to polarization and alienation from many (like myself) who would naturally be in her camp on many issues were she not so extreme, she gets more popular with each increment of outrageousness. It’s simply difficult for me to believe that someone of Coulter’s intellect and education believes half the things that come out her mouth.

Quiz answers below the fold.

Answers: Coulter 1, 4, 6 Colbert 2, 3, 5, 7

Comedian Stephen Colbert instructed the audience of his popular Comedy Central program “The Colbert Report” to challenge Wikipedia’s “truthiness” by pulling a little stunt. It didn’t work.

In an attempt to prove that Wikipedia’s version of truth is flexible, Colbert recently told viewers to alter the Wikipedia page on “elephant” to state that the population of African elephants had tripled in the last decade. This is, of course, untrue. But as Colbert stated, if enough people alter the page on Wikipedia, it’s fact.

[...]

There was just one problem with the prank: Colbert was ultimately proven wrong. Although the servers were tested, soon after Colbert began ranting about wikiality on his show, the encyclopedia had locked down the page on elephants and Colbert’s biography. The pages of the entire site are vigilantly guarded by dozens of self-appointed moderators. And as of this printing, no changes or inaccurate information about the current population of the elephant can be seen.

In the days since the furor began, hundreds of users have contributed nearly 20,000 heated words about how the “elephant” page should read. The debate has ranged from whether “wikiality” should be discussed, to anger over Colbert’s joke, to abstracts of studies examining the population rate of elephants in South Africa.

[...]

More than 100,000 active volunteer contributors governing 1.2 million articles on Wikipedia. The average article is edited about 34 times. Each edit is documented and debated.

While Wikipedia has all manner of theoretical problems, the fact of the matter is that the concept has worked better than any could have reasonably hoped. Recent studies have shown that its accuracy is comparable to that of Encyclopedia Britannica, long touted as the gold standard.