In case you haven’t heard election season is upon us and in honor of tonight’s debate, we decided we needed to help our readers get in the spirit!

Look, there’s a reason my main source of news is The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, and a humorous talk radio program.  If you want me to pay attention to politics and learn anything about how our system works, there better be a humorous jab in there somewhere.  You can keep your West Wing and Manchurian Candidate, I prefer my politicians played by the likes of Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis (a close runner-up).

I know that I can’t be alone in this because these programs and films seem to do pretty well for themselves.  If you watch the debate tonight and walk away feeling like you need to wash it all down with something making light of it all, I give you the following five candidates:

5. First Kid – Sinbad.  Enough said.  Granted I haven’t seen this one in a while, but little me loved this movie.  First of all, the kid was a babe.  Even little me was not immune to the effect that this major component can have on a movie.  Also, it showed that first kids are just like us!  They want get picked on bullies from Home Improvement and want to go to school dances.  We feel for ya, Malia and Sasha.

4. Dave – This one comes with an extra help of heart and romance.  The Parent Trap of political movies, if you will.  Although, they are not actually twins in this movie, they both just share a striking resemblance to Kevin Kline.  In all seriousness, if you haven’t seen this one, it gets a strong recommendation from this girl.

3. Veep –  This is Julia Louis-Dreyfus as you have never seen/heard her, because she has never been on cable.  Watching her Selina Kyle try and navigate the swampy DC waters with her intelligent and awful team is a treat.  Among that team is the little girl from My Girl all grown up (Anna Chlumsky) and Buster Bluth (Tony Hale).  Sold, right?  This one might be a little blue for some of our readers, but it’s pretty hilarious, so check it out if you think you can handle it.

2. Dick –This movie taught me everything I need to know about the Watergate scandal, presidential resignations, oh, and Deep Throat.  The anonymous informant not the porno!  Gutters, people! Out!  Don’t take this to mean that I believe two teenage girls double-handedly brought down the Nixon administration, but when I first watched this as an 11-year old, my mom had to explain all of the actual events to me so that I could find the movie funny.  Which I did and still do to this day.

1. Parks and Recreation – Disclaimer:  there are going to be very few lists in my in which Parks and Rec would NOT be at the top.  My love for this show knows no bounds.  There is nothing else out there that so perfectly combines laughs, heart tugs, and political satire!  Barbara Boxer and John McCain were in the premiere for goodness sake!  I feel like especially last season had a lot to say about our election process, applicable to both local and federal.  Campaign ads, fundraising, political scandals, the media, debates, bus tours, it’s all there to enjoy.

There you have it!  What did I leave off?  Do I need to be more serious about my political viewing?  (Like that’s going to happen).

-Ellen