Akst: I hereby announce my candidacy ...

Like many authors, I've tried everything to generate book sales, but apparently I just can't write well enough for critical acclaim or badly enough for lowbrow popularity.

That's why I've decided to run for president.

Look, what sells books these days is celebrity, and running has brought valuable attention to a host of book-writers who are no more deserving than yours truly. The presidential race has made everyone aware of Herman Cain, after all, and forced all of us to remember Newt Gingrich, no matter how desperately we may wish those memories had remained suppressed. Even Donald Trump ran briefly, enjoying the spotlight for a while and generously elevating the campaign with his unique brand of class.

But unlike some other candidates, I make no pretense about my poor prospects for election, or knowing which side we were on in Libya, or what federal agencies I've promised to close. I just need to get famous, fast.

And I'm a coward. The only real alternative -- marrying Kim Kardashian in a storybook wedding -- is far scarier than the ordeal of seeking the nation's highest office. Sorry Kim, but I'll take trial by fire any day!

Now that I'm a serious candidate, of course, I have to do everything I can to be an unserious person. So rest assured that I plan to cut your federal income taxes -- unless of course you're too poor to pay any, in which case I'll raise them.

But really, who needs taxes? It's your money; keep it! Unlike the other candidates, with their piddling budget-cutting proposals, I plan to tackle the monster of government spending head on. I'll slash federal spending right down to zero in my first year in office, except of course for subsidies to agribusiness, big oil and the financial services industry.

Oh, and I guess we'll still need a few bucks to prosecute Ben Bernanke for printing all that money over at the Fed. We'll also need to pay a lawyer to retry the Scopes case -- you know, the one in which Spencer Tracy made a monkey out of Fredric March.

In fact, forget everything I've said in the past about evolution, climate change, abortion, gravity and the multiplication tables. They're all just theories, bad ones at that, and I reject every last one of them.

I won't vacillate around the subject of sex, either. Come to think of it, I oppose vacillation in all its forms, whether against the human papillomavirus or anything else that causes disease. In a free country, people should be allowed to choose for themselves whether their children are vacillated. Someone just told me that vacillation can cause mental retardation, and I believe it. Has anyone checked whether any of my opponents has been vacillated lately?

Anyway, back to sex. There won't be any such hanky-panky in my administration, and as president I pledge to limit my activities in this arena to sexual harassment, as I've always done in the past. Sexual harassment was good enough for Bill Clinton, after all, and he was a pretty successful politician.

I won't shirk immigration when I get to Washington. While my opponents have talked of walls and moats and the like to keep out Mexicans, I believe American technology can do the job much more effectively.

My administration will use land mines.

And there won't be any speculation as to who my vice president will be, because I'm announcing my running mate -- Jesus -- here and now.

There, that ought to sell a few books. And if it doesn't, I suppose there's always Kim Kardashian.

Daniel Akst is a member of the Newsday editorial board.