You there! Fancy a ‘flutter’, do you?

Let’s face it – even if you ascribe to Bill Hicks’ philosophy that American politics is basically choosing which puppet can give the best impression of your beliefs (something Britain seems to have emulated too), then you might as well make a bit of cash out of this whole upcoming election shebang.

So we’re all doomed to Armageddon no matter who gets into office? Who cares? You’ve got a tenner that’s burning a hole in yer pocket, and you’ll be damned if you’re not going to do something election-based with it, right here, right now.

Let’s kick things off with the big boy, then: the betting odds for which party is going to win the 2008 US Presidential Election, as mapped out by those lovely people over at Paddy Power.

Republican Party (Odds: 7-4)

Anyone with a base grasp of world affairs – so Big Brother contestants can look away now – will be aware that the Republicans presently hold office by virtue of grinning simpleton George W. Bush.

This is something of a disappointing low point in their legacy thus far. Even if you don’t agree with their politics, any party that can count Ulysses S. Grant - a name surely on a par with Hercules T. Magnificent or Jesus Q. Megatron – among their past leaders has it least got it right in the impressive-sounding stakes. Being British, we don’t really know anything about old Ulysses here at hecklerspray, except for the fact that he was apparently known for ‘tolerating financial and politician corruption among top aides.’ Hey – maybe he’s not so different from Georgie-boy after all.

George won’t be eligible for president this time around, though, as a) American rules forbid any president ruling for more than two terms, and b) he has a lot of colouring-in to catch up on. And those Garfield And Friends puzzle books don’t fill themselves in, you know.  He’ll be replaced by either John McCain, Mitt Romney, Rudolph Giuliani, Ron Paul, Fred Thompson or the terrifying Mike Huckabee. We’ll be going further in depth about these fellows soon enough, but for now all you need to know is that the Republican Winning Odds stand at 7-4.

Democrat Party – 2-5

The oldest political party in the United States, you can trace the roots of this organisation way back to 1792, roughly around the same time Jackie Collins was born. Left-leaning and liberal, the Democrats generally tend not to take such a rabidly knee-jerk view of things as their main political rivals, and rank John F Kennedy as among their previous leaders.

Certain party figureheads, though, have been quite fond of inserting cigars into the vaginas of young lady interns, which last time we checked isn’t common practise in any workplace we know (JJB Sports have yet to get back to us on the matter). And it hasn’t been a total success story over the years – there’ve been quite a few election losses, including two by Adlai Stevenson (who kind of made up for it by having a Sufjan Stevens song written about him).

Last time the Democrats were running for office, they made the insane choice of having John Kerry as their leader – a man who decided to act as a refreshing alternative to the war-crazy government by waffling on about Vietnam all the time and saluting every baby he was handed to kiss. This time around, however, it could either be Hilary Clinton, Barack Obama or John Edwards trying to grab votes. As with the Repubs, there’ll be more on them from us soon, but in the meantime you just pay attention to those 2-5 betting odds, mister.

Paddy Power Election Betting Odds