The criteria is straightforward. Pick the politician who you think has acted the most foolish over the last year.

The rules for this selection are very simple: vote early, vote often and vote later. In sum, you can vote as much as you want and for as many candidates as you want. This is a poll about fools, after all. A little whimsy in the serious business of politics is in place here. Then again, with some of the stunts these politicians have pulled, they deserve all the ridicule they can get. On New Year’s Eve, Foolocracy will select your winner with some fanfare of sorts.

Here are the candidates with a brief quip and link about one or several of their foolish feats or words of the past year. Your consideration is not limited to the article these candidates are linked to. The articles are only included as a simple reminder that eventually all politicians play the fool.

Oh, there is one more point. Because you can vote as often as you want and for as many politicians as you want, Foolocracy is keeping the results secret until the end. We might give a hint now and then how the voting is going, but not enough to influence it…as if it really matters.

Barack Obama – 57 states and counting?

John McCain – Uh, how many houses did he own before he suspended his campaign?

Sarah Palin – Too many qualifications as a fool to mention

John Edwards – When the National Enquirer makes a fool out of you, that’s enough to be nominated as a fool

George Bush – Seriously, is there a reason not to include him?

Silvio Berlusconi – This Italian Prime Minister selected cabinet members by their good looks and, allegedly, had oral sex with one of them…and, no, he is the Italian Prime Minister, not a former American President

Rod Blagojevich – Mr. Corruption 2008

Eliot Spitzer – At least he pays good

Robert Mugabe – The President of Zimbabwe rigged his re-election and ruined the economy with inflation running at a few hundred million percent

Hillary Clinton - How do you blow a huge lead for the Democratic nomination? Ducking fire from make-believe snipers in Bosnia

Hugo Chavez – Venezuela’s tin pot dictator only pretends to believe in democracy

Jesse Jackson – He wanted to do what to Barack Obama?

Jim Gibbons – When the state has legalized prostitution and gambling, what do you expect from the governor?

Kwame Kilpatrick – Detroit’s mayor mixed sex, arrogance and perjury. Now he is set to be the mayor of his cellblock

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad – Why nuclear technology and idiocy is never a good mix

Ralph Nader – Preparing to debate a dummy is…dumb

Vito Fossella – Next time you’re arrested don’t call the mistress to pick you up

Troy Buswell – The ladies need to worry where they sit with this Australian chair-sniffing politician

Alan Keyes – How may times can one person run for President in a single year?

Bill Clinton – He really, really wanted to be the first First Husband

On the other side, 11% called Obama’s choices horrible, a mix of socialists and terrorists. A bit over 22% called Obama’s choices Clinton holdovers and Washington insiders.

In the middle were 23% who said they have not made up their mind yet.

Another 14% considered Foolocracy somewhat conservative or somewhat liberal. “Libertarian-like” was picked by 9%. That combined 23% is nebulous and balanced roughly equal between persuasions to leave us at Foolocracy feeling that we are giving a fair reporting of stories. Add that to the 54% who say we have no bias, or we are centrist, and that means 3 out of 4 of you think we are basically even-handed.

So what about the other 1 out 4 people who visit Foolocracy?

Well … 9% say Foolocracy is filled with “Left-wing, politically correct nonsense” and 14% say we spew “Right-wing, neo-con blather.”

All I can say is that either some of you are way out on the political extremes or you took part in the LSD experiments the federal government ran in the 1960′s. You know those flashbacks can go on for years.

Neo-con blather? … 14% … 1 out 7 coming to this site? That is hard to imagine.

I’ll have to see if Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz are available for blogging.

Bob Barr and Ralph Nader tied at 5% each, with 3% of the people writing in Ron Paul. Cynthia McKinney received 1%. Alan Keyes garnered just under 1%.

The poll was compiled from 13,600 people who visited the site.