COULD FLY FACTOR DECIDE '08 RACE?

Byline: BRIDGET JOHNSON

IRAQ war, gay rights, immigration, Iran, stem cells, yadda yadda: A candidate's stance on these issues may come in second on the road to 2008 as each competes to be the hippest, funkiest, freshest, dopest, flyest G on the ballot.

We felt the first rumbles of this cultural campaign temblor in the 2000 White House run, when Oprah declared George W. Bush the better kisser. By 2004, Wesley Clark was quoting OutKast lyrics and the Dennis Kucinich hip-hop street team tried to show D.C. residents that the Ohio congressman was pretty fly for a white guy.

Now campaign announcements are made on a talk show sandwiched between jokes about bald Britney and diaper-clad psycho astronauts.

In a page ripped from the Arnold Schwarzenegger playbook, John McCain announced his intentions to run on David Letterman. Schwarzenegger announced his intentions to unseat girlie man Gray Davis in California's gubernatorial recall on Jay Leno.

And in another idea straight from the Governator, the field of 2008 candidates is shooting for the first-name basis. The "Arnold" nomenclature was as much necessity as chumminess: Editors couldn't fit "Schwarzenegger" into most headlines, and Californians needed a more bumper sticker-friendly moniker for their fave candidate.

Now take a look at the presidential hopefuls' Web sites: Sen. Clinton is simply Hillary on her site's banner. The headline at the top of the browser window when visiting Mike Huckabee's site says "I Like Mike." And in an address that could make it onto Hilfiger tees everywhere, Tommy Thompson is using www.tommy2008.com. Might Brownback next shoot for "Sam I Am!" or Kucinich pimp for votes for "Denny the Demmy"?

Many candidates already have links to YouTube from their home pages, furtively hoping that Web surfers will take a break from watching clips of champion collegiate beer-bongers to hear their spiel about immigration reform. And in the battle for the blogosphere, Mitt Romney is on MySpace, where he reveals he is a straight Pisces and Mormon (really?) and at last check has nearly 20,000 creepy MySpace friends (including his not-so-creepy family and really hot sons).

It seems that the presidential wannabes will be playing catch-up to Giuliani on fly points. He's done drag, done the tabloids and hosted "Saturday Night Live" -- as did John McCain, who appropriately butchered Barbra Streisand's songbook.

And when it comes to musical tastes, the New York Post polled candidates about their latest purchases of tunes -- key, because I could never trust a candidate with bad Canadian pop in his iPod. While Kucinich swung 180 degrees from his hip-hop street cred and picked Willie Nelson, and other candidates offered hipster rock and pop choices, Giuliani said he'd shelled out for Verdi's "Macbeth."

It might not have been on "American Idol," but that's music to rule by!