Exciting Breaking News!

I am announcing today my candidacy for the Presidency of the United States.

I am embarking on this journey, my fellow Americans, for one reason and one reason only --- because I want to be the boss of you. If you're reading this right now I know two things about you: One, that you can read.

Two, that you already support me, at least to the extent that you can tolerate my writing.

These are good things.

Things that encourage me as I prepare for my wonderful journey.

I ask all of you to accompany me on this exciting, wonderful, excellent journey because I don't want to go alone. It's much more fun to go on journeys with others. So as we set our sights on that long and winding road to the future, I ask you to remember one thing: Go to the bathroom before we leave. I don't want to have to find a place to stop once we get going.

We are making this special, thrilling journey for another reason. It's humbling, but in my heart I know you don't support me because I'm me, you support me because you believe in what this country can be. In the face of war, you believe there can be peace.

In the face of despair, you believe there can be hope.

In the face of a politics that's shut you out, that's told you to settle, that's divided us for too long, you believe we can be one people, reaching for what's possible, building that more perfect union.

With all these faces we should take a group selfie.

And speaking of selfie, let's talk about me. I am running for the highest office in the land (and the world, actually) as the very first cartoonist/writer/gagman to do so. Never in the history of our great nation has there been a man elected president who could draw Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck and write a four-panel gag cartoon. All freehand. This campaign can't only be about me. Honest to G0D, it can't. It must be about us Ñ it must be about what we can do together. And together we can get me elected. That's why I'm in this race. Not to hold an office, but to hold the biggest freakin' office in the whole dang world. Yes, we can! We can do this thing if we work together. We can get me elected.

Now before we step off the platform of despair and climb board that train of hope that will take me, I mean us, into the White House, let us not forget the most important thing. This isn't about me; it's about the beautiful, fantastic, incredible journey. And it's about electing the first cartoonist president.

I want to ask you this: "Don't you want to see more cartoonists and gagmen running for mayor and governor who will put our families first?" "Don't you want to see more cartoonists and gagmen running for Congress who will champion equal pay and equal opportunity for those of us who draw for a living? And I suppose it's only fair to say don't you someday want to see a cartoonist president of the United States of America?"

Neither Winsor MacKay nor George McManus would have dreamt of a moment such as the one we now embark upon. Rube Goldberg, Bud Fisher, Charles Schultz, E.C. Segar, or Roy Williams could scarcely have imagined it. And even Walt Disney, in his wildest dreams, would never think that a day might come when a poor cartoonist from Burbank, California might hold the office of President of the United States. At least not with a straight face.

So if you will join me in this improbable quest, if you feel destiny calling, and see as I see, a future of endless possibility stretching before us; if you sense, as I sense, that the time is now to shake off our slumber, and slough off our fear, and make good on the debt we owe past and future generations of struggling cartoonists, then I'm ready to take up the cause, and march with you, and work with you.

Together, starting today, let us finish the work that needs to be done, and usher in a new birth of freedom on this Earth.

G0D bless all of you. G0D bless America. And G0D bless this blessed journey. It's not about me.

Really.

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JWR contributor Greg Crosby, former creative head for Walt Disney publications, has written thousands of comics, hundreds of children's books, dozens of essays, and a letter to his congressman. He's also a Southern California-based freelance writer.