The Japanese are often held up as Americans’ polar opposites. They’re introverted and reserved; we’re bold and brash. They cherish conformity; we worship the individual. They gave the world haiku; we gave it “Wassup?”

I’m not saying I want us to be just like Japan; for one thing, I don’t speak Japanese. But I do think there are several areas in which we would benefit from taking a page from their playbook. Of course, if we did that, we’d have to get it translated because it would be in, you know, Japanese.

One of the areas in which we could use some help is in the way we do election campaigns. Japan has a 50-year-old law that prohibits candidates from using visual images that can reach a large, unspecified number of people. This law has been interpreted to mean that campaigning on TV and the Internet is illegal.

Sound good? You bet it does. Our presidential election is 15 months away and I’m already tired of candidates talking smack about their opponents from the other party (or from the same party, for that matter). If we took the lead from our Japanese counterparts, things would be a lot different and, dare I say, a lot more entertaining.

First of all, we could have candidates like Mac Akasaka. If nothing else, getting to say “Mac Akasaka” for 15 months would be pretty darned entertaining. No other candidate’s name has even a fraction of the entertainment potential of Akasaka’s. Of the major contenders, “Barack Obama” comes closest, with the “Obama/yo mama” rhyme holding some limited comedic possibilities. A “Kucinich/spinach” pairing would likely appeal only to vegetarians and/or fans of old Popeye cartoons.

But, anyway, since the Japanese can’t campaign on television, they have to come up with other ways to attract attention. And this is where the fun starts.

Akasaka, who is running for a seat in the Japanese parliament’s upper house, parks his van in the middle of Tokyo’s bustling Shibuya district, cranks up the tunes, and goes all Michael Jackson on top of the van.

It sounds like a stunt (well, it is a stunt) but it’s no joke. "Low-profile candidates like me need some kind of twist to get attention from the public; otherwise, nobody would listen to my speech no matter how hard I try," Akasaka was quoted as saying.

Think about that, and compare it to the way we campaign. Wouldn’t you rather watch a candidate bust a move on the roof of his van than listen to him drone on and on about health care or immigration reform? I know I would.

But, despite his antics, there’s one area in which we have the Japanese beaten, hands down: while they have but one Mac Akasaka, we have an entire administration that tap-dances – around the truth.