(A few times a week, I take a new book with me to lunch and give it a half an hour or so to grab my attention. Lunch Date is my judgment on that speed-dating experience.)

Who’s your date today? Mike’s Election Guide 2008, by Michael Moore.

Where’d you go? Guanacos Tacos, on Brooklyn Ave in the U District.

What’d you eat? I had a sampler with a pupusa, an empanada, and a fried yuca ($6.50).

How was the food? It was really good. Guanaco’s does Salvadoran food, and I believe they’re the only pupuseria in the greater Seattle area the northern Seattle area. I had the pork carnita pupusa, and it was terrific, a fried pocket of dough wrapped around spiced, but not spicy, meat. The meal came with a bunch of different salsas, too. The fried yuca didn’t have a whole lot of flavor, but the texture was just about perfect and it was perfectly fried—crisp on the outside and chewy on the inside. The empanada was dessert, filled with sweet cream and covered in cinnamon. It was all lovely. The horchata ($1.50) was not as good as the horchata at other Mexican places in the area, mostly due to a crippling lack of cinnamon.

What does your date say about itself? ‘Welcome to Mike’s Election Guide, my effort to make sense of this fall’s race for the White House and Congress. Herein I answer the nation’s most pressing questions: “Why is John McCain so angry?” “Do the Democrats Still Drink from a Sippy Cup and Sleep with the Light On?” “Can I Get into the Electoral College with Only a 2.0 GPA?” and “How Many Democrats Does It Take to Lose the Most Winnable Election in American History?”’

Is there a representative quote? “The important thing to remember here is that the terrorists have lost! OUR WAY OF LIFE has won! Yes, we will gladly strip naked at the airport if we have to. Yes, we will pay whatever the pump tells us to pay. Yes, you can listen in on my phone calls and read my private emails—hell, you can put a friggin’ drill in my head and insert a thought-control chip on my frontal lobe—just as long as you promise me that I will be safe and the terrorists will be defeated! Wait, wait—is that a 100-inch plasma screen TV I see over there in the window? I have to have it! I must protect America and kill more terrorists!! Oh, God, PLEASE…do you take Discover?”

Will you two end up in bed together? Not a snowball’s chance in hell. You know, I’ve never read a Michael Moore book before: Are they all this stupid? I know he’s got his everyman schtick, but this bullshit ‘satire’ is so 2004. Also, when he’s talking about gay marriage, he suggests that, because the image of two men kissing is gross, we should imagine two hot girls making out instead, because everybody likes two hot girls making out. And then he runs a picture of two bottle blonds touching tongues, to get the point across. Also: he goes after fat people for being fat. I wish Michael Moore would just go away. He was doing an important job at a time when nobody else was doing it on a national level, but now that the job’s been done, and he’s just embarrassing us all.