American Idol maven and auburn-haired Broadway crooner Clay Aiken thinks "Washington is dysfunctional." So he'd like to be a congressman and fix all that now, please, thank you very much.

Aiken is officially throwing his hat in the ring to run as a Democrat against conservative Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-N.C.), according to the Raleigh News & Observer:

After months of exploring a Congressional bid, he recently decided to put his entertainment career on hold and run.

"I saw this as the best place I could serve, because I think Washington, in general, is dysfunctional," Aiken said. "I think it's high time we put people in Congress who were not beholden to their party, and not beholden to anything but the people who they live around and grew up around, in my case."

Aiken's qualifications do not include a law degree or political experience, but they do include having a $2 million home just inside the rural congressional district and having starred in "Spamalot," which likely taught him a lot about building knightly consensus and solving social problems like deadly bunnies with big pointy nasty teeth.

The big difference between Ellmers and him, Aiken says in the highly amusing video above, is that Washington changed her. "I went to Hollywood and I didn't let it change me." Well then!

The only critical question here, besides the Hollywood star's sense of parachutist entitlement, is: can that parachuting Hollywood star win the military vote back from Ellmers?