In which The Gay Recluse mixes pleasure and politics.

Today — in what we can now confirm was the biggest day ever at The Gay Recluse (from a traffic-whore perspective) — we had the pleasure of having Dan Savage link to our smokin’ hot gay-statue contest. We encourage you to check out the full post on Slog (“Strike a Pose“), which — if you’re not familiar with it — has many times led us to fantasize about moving to Seattle. Be sure to enjoy the comments, which run the gamut from hilariously annoying to sadly self-hating to righteously bitchy. (That said, we’ll let you connect those particular dots.) Thanks to Savage, we’ve already received some great statue pix, which we will post soon.

Moving away from statues, we also wanted to take this opportunity to officially endorse Dan Savage as our choice for vice-president of the United States. Ok, stop rolling your eyes if you think we’re endorsing him just because he was kind enough to promote our statue contest. A careful examination of the record will reveal several instances in which we made similar comments around the blogosphere to the same effect, not because we had any particular hope of currying his favor, but because we think he would be better than 99 percent of current office holders, particularly those with access to the Oval Office. (Plus, Curbed also linked to the statue post, and we’re not endorsing them for vice-president, although frankly we wouldn’t mind seeing a few of those guys on the city council.)

Regular readers of The Gay Recluse know that we’ve already endorsed Barack Obama for president (after giving up on Geraldine Ferraro and — our longstanding but secret wish — Janice Dickinson), but whoever gets the nod — even Hillary Clinton, who we also support, just not as much as Obama — would be smart to put Dan Savage at the top of his or her shortlist of potential running mates. It could be the difference between between a Democratic victory and another four years of _____!

Consider the assets/demographics Savage brings to the table:

• Proven asshole-Republican slayer (ask Rick Santorum)
• Knows what a blog is (the youth vote, omg!)
• Gay (the gay vote)
• Family guy (the soccer-mom vote, lol)
• Likes cities (the urban vote)
• Environmentally conscious (the idiots-who-voted-for-Nader-in-2000 vote, wtf)
• Admits when he’s made a mistake (the progressive vote)
• Has a heart (the liberal vote)
• Tough (the blue-collar vote)
• Immune to scandal (the dipshit-independent vote)
• Good on television (the television vote)

Seriously, could anyone else be better situated on the Democratic ticket? Who would you rather have go head-to-head with whatever asshole Republican John McCain has at his side? John Edwards? Al Gore? Mayor Bloomberg? That idiot from New Mexico who said sexual orientation was a choice (to a gay audience)? Dodd? Biden? Zzzzzzzzzzzz. No thanks to all of the above.

Listen up, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton! Here’s your chance to buck conventional wisdom: choose Dan Savage as your running mate this summer and reap the rewards with a landslide victory in November. Our fucked-up country awaits your decision: for once, make it a good one.