One of my favorite bumper stickers is a simple little thing, like so many simple little things, says so much. The bumper sticker is in red, white, and blue and uses the graphic design of a typical campaign yard sign. The message: Republicans for Voldemort.

I read it for the first time in a Dartmouth College parking lot. Although that region of the country is prone to some of the most self-righteous of liberal sentiments, the simplicity of the Voldemort line was what struck me as genius. It is so over the top it is hilarious.

If ever there was a Death Eater in the White House, and I suspect there has been more than one (damn you Harding), it’s Dick Cheney. I think we know the house he was likely sorted into when he first arrived at school – nobody gets that gloomy being a Hufflepuff.

Here’s what we know to be true. Voldemort uses terror to gain power. He is secretive. He values loyalty above competence. He attracts bad eggs to do his bidding and unsavory people to manage his affairs underground. He only cares for power and immortality, the means however unjust, are completely irrelevant. It’s the power that matters.

Okay, I can see some similarities between the Bush Administration and the Death Eaters. However, please don’t forget that Voldemort is something of a genius as well, and the president, well . . .

I can see just as many similarities between the fictional Dark Lord and Democratic hacks, pundits, and lobbyists as I can with their Republican counterparts. In this case it isn’t an issue of political partisanship, its an issue of the political class being dominated by people who love power despite its toxic effects on the soul of the nation, not to mention, the body politic of the nation. This is not something new – petty little backstabbers dominated Rome – but it is something that is not beyond our skeptical eye. The closest thing we have to Death Eaters are congressional staffers.

To push this a little farther, would your average Republican vote for Voldemort? When I was in eight grade I was an insufferable Republican child know-it-all. Not much has changed, right? One of my classmates called me mean because I was a Republican and all Republicans were, according to her moronic mother, were a bunch of big meanies. The Voldemort line is a humorous way of saying the same thing and reinforcing the myth of the mean Republican. I might not be the most pleasant person in the world but I wouldn’t vote for the Dark Lord.

Republicans, generally, believe in moral absolutes. They think that matters of right verses wrong are real dynamics in the universe, however skewed their value judgments may be, they actually believe in tangible things. This is in concert with the world of Harry Potter where there is no relativism, instead, a real paradigm between what is considered good and what is considered evil. Some have called this “pre-modern” worldview but I think thats just a cheap way to dismiss what is a compelling outlook, even in our post-modern society. Hogwarts is just as much about morality as it is about potions and spells. With those on the left morality is often a dirty word.

The fact that so many Republicans, including this token writer, have abandoned the President now that his true colors (stupidity, arrogance, disregard for law and tradition, secrecy and incompetence) have shown through, shows that as a species, we Republicans still put some value in the individual running for public office as a person of character. Just because the base 29 percent of absolute lunatics out there refuses to see what is blatantly apparent, doesn’t make the rest of us compromised simply because of our party affiliation.

Republicans aren’t for Voldemort. We aren’t even for Cheney anymore.