Every time I think the putrid state of American politics couldn’t possibly get any worse, someone comes along and manages to knock the system down a few pegs on the ladder of ethics and respectability.

First, it’s the debacle of the California elections where residents are being forced to weed through more than 200 candidates including, but not limited to, Arnold Arnold Schwarzenegger along with Larry Flynt and Gary Coleman- and now this.

In an effort to motivate young voters to register, professional wrestling svengali Vince McMahon and hip hop mogul Russell Simmons have teamed up for a program aptly dubbed “Smackdown Your Vote.”

In some ways, the program is a no brainer. McMahon, quite possibly the world’s largest producer of mindless, sophomoric television, is responsible for Spike TV’s “RAW is WAR” and UPN’s “Smackdown!” while Simmons is the brains behind Def Jam Records and Run DMC among other ventures.

The pair, obviously no longer content with giving the world bloody chair shots, scantily clad women and ignorant millionaires pretending to be thugs, will now be running a voter registration drive the same way they have run their respective empires: with shameless self promotion and a touch of self-grandizing class.

While the worlds of politics, hip hop and professional wrestling (or “sports entertainment” as McMahon prefers) may seem eons apart, the three share remarkable similarities.

In politics, aging white men pretend to care about the needs of voters and the well-being of constituents while lining their pockets with corporate cash. In professional wrestling, fans pretend starlets breasts are real, a wrestlers arms aren’t enhanced by steroids and McMahon himself pretends he can not only act, but wrestle. Similarly enough, rich hip hop artists pretend to be “down” with the streets while creating works of laughable fiction driven down the throats of a gullible audience often too ignorant to know any better or simply care.

In short, each industry is built on an elaborate game of make believe where the participants aren’t concerned with what they are, but how they appear to onlookers.

Both Simmons and McMahon have said they are planning to promote “Smackdown Your Vote!” the same way they have built their respective companies and that’s precisely what I’m afraid of. The overall number of young voters could certainly use a shot in the arm, but some promotions run the risk of making laughable politics simply unbearable.

While the intentions may be good, the last thing American politics need is the likes of Def Jam artists DMX or Jay-Z telling young people about the difference every vote can make in America. Likewise, the sage-like advice of Hulk Hogan or Kurt Angle can’t carry much weight with young voters. Or at least it shouldn’t.

I can’t commit to having much faith in America’s political process and this is the reason. As if it’s not bad enough Americans are subjected to crooked, lying politicians deeply rooted in the pockets of big business, young voters now have to listen to inane tripe spewed by the likes of rappers and wrestlers. Sure, their words may be more reliable than Bush’s, but that’s not really saying much at all, is it?

For every voter the program may register, two or three people will simply see politics as the grandest of farces and the ultimate in make believe.

I would like to think American between 18 and 25 are far too intelligent to see something like this as anything other than purely comical, but I’ve learned to never underestimate the predictability of stupidity, especially when it comes to politics.