OK
Hey, it's Flame, and who said flames and farts don't mix?
Sure, I'd agree that there are groupies who get a little weird in their devotion to their celebrities...entertainment as well as political. I wouldn't expect Conservatives to be too comfortable in the role of rock star, but yes again, Reagan offered a more comfortable Marlboro Man (or Marlboro Messiah) archetype. Same principle of appealing to archetypical primate symbolism buried in the human mind. Same alpha, different costume.
the miserable excuses for presidential candidates that your side has been tossing up
Well, I'd have chosen my words a bit more carefully and described it as "throwing up", but the thing I must dispute is your characterization of the Democratic Party as "my side". Where've you been? I've been describing the political establishment, both branches of it, as a pox upon the nation, and their destruction our only hope of regaining control of our own government. My side? Are you on drugs?
Be careful about blithely lumping "Clinton/Hillary/Gore" inside the Democratic party. One of those three has been behaving with increasing independence over the last few years, and may pursue the presidency as an independent. And may win in large part because of that. We've gone beyond the stale positioning of politicians as "outside-the-Beltway"; seems like these days, "outside-the-political-machine" is even more attractive to a lot of people.