A lot of loyal readers have been asking me to reveal my choice for president of the United States, even though we don’t yet know who the Republican nominee will be.

“If we don’t know whom you’re for, how can we decide whom we’re against?” they say, which makes about as much sense as anything else I’ve been hearing.

Republican hopefuls have been falling like ripe pecans in a hurricane, and President Obama’s wagon seems to be hitched to an economic roller coaster that seems to be stalled on the downside.

So I’ve searched the universe of possibilities and come up with a sure winner: Watson.

No, Watson is not a senator or governor or pizza tycoon. I’m talking about the IBM computer that bested Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter on Jeopardy, proving that human intelligence is no match for artificial intelligence.

Look at the competition. Poor Herman Cain had to pull out of the race for the Republican nomination because he seems to have an eye for women with loose tongues. I don’t know why people pick on Herman. Newt Gingrich is no model of celibacy, and he’s soared toward the top of the list. Maybe that’s because, as a professed historian, he can cite a long line of statesmen who dallied their way to the presidency.

George Washington had an eye for his next-door neighbor’s wife. Tom Jefferson went back-door creeping on his best friend, and who knows what went on between him and Sally Hemings. Andy Jackson apparently married Rachel before she was legally divorced from her first husband. Franklin Pierce was known as a boisterous partyer in Washington, while his tubercular wife remained home in New Hampshire. Grover Cleveland owned up to siring an illegitimate daughter before going to the White House. Warren Harding smuggled his mistress into the White House, and the Secret Service had to hide her in a closet until they observed Mrs. Harding looking the other way. Franklin Roosevelt stepped out on Eleanor even after he was confined to a wheelchair. Dwight Eisenhower had a thing for Kay Summersby, his jeep driver. John Kennedy had a thing for mobsters’ molls. Jimmy Carter lusted in his heart. Bill Clinton had a thing for anybody with skirts, especially if they wore thongs underneath.

Barack Obama seems thus far to have escaped any hint of marital scandal. His enemies have been too busy trying to falsify his birth certificate.

It used to be that every candidate had to clear himself of any odor of pot smoke, or at least convince the skeptical that he didn’t inhale. But since a whole generation of presidential-age Americans spent their youths puffing weed, applying that criterion would quickly empty the field of candidates. I suspect that sexual dalliance will soon go that same route with the coming of age of a generation in which everyone is expected to have had multiple partners by the time they reach puberty. Herman Cain was born a generation too soon.

The odium of sexual dalliance apparently doesn’t affect women. Ask Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina. Two men from opposing camps tried to fall on their swords by claiming, at the height of her election campaign, that they had enjoyed one-night stands with her. She called it nonsense, her husband stood up for her, and she won the election handily. South Carolina voters apparently chalked it up to lies, wishful thinking, or flagrant violation of the code of chivalry. Down South, it’s bad politics to kiss and tell.

Rick Perry, of course, doomed his chances when he couldn’t remember which federal departments he wanted to abolish. Rick ought to get a mulligan on that one. I can’t remember how many times I’ve been asked, out of the blue, for my wife’s cell phone number and couldn’t remember it. I recently asked AT&T for assistance in setting up my telecommunications in my new home and was asked to name my favorite restaurant. I couldn’t remember. I think it was a restaurant on the Causeway that was destroyed by a hurricane. Or maybe it was a restaurant in New Orleans, where one hurricane too many destroyed my memory.

I’m sure that, given enough time, the governor could remember which departments he would eliminate just as, given enough time, he could tell you how many stars are in the Texas flag.

Sarah Palin could eventually get into the mix, once she has researched the midnight ride of Paul Revere and can tell you whom he went out to warn. But I don’t think the former governor wants the presidency bad enough to take a pay cut.

Mitt Romney may have the easiest job, when it comes to memory. His critics say has no trouble telling you which positions he has taken on issues such as abortion and health care, since he’s taken them all.

So we’re back to Watson. I don’t think he has any wild women in his background, and if he’s ever indulged in cyber sex, I’m sure he’s erased the memory. There are some who will say that he has no core. I say, so what? He’s a product of IBM, not Apple, so of course he has no core.

Of course, Watson may encounter some skepticism as to whether he is a natural-born citizen of the United States. There’s that instance on Jeopardy when he seemed to think that Toronto was in the United States. But that’s understandable. The Toronto Bluejays are in the American League, and the folks up there do speak better English than do many of the American citizens in Brownsville, Texas.

As I see it, the only question concerning Watson’s origins would be whether his circuitry contains Chinese components. But surely IBM would take care of that with a little judicious substitution of parts.

Readers may write Gene Owens at 104 Belspring Lane, Anderson SC 29621 or email him at WadesDixieco@AOL.com.