Go North, Young Man

Following the unplanned stop at the prehistoric park yesterday, McDougal felt he'd gotten behind on the campaign trail and immediately sat down to plan the next 14 days of his campaign tour. This seemed like a pretty good idea until McDougal showed us the new campaign route he'd mapped out.

"Sally," he says. "We're going after the silent majority."

"Uhhh ... I'm not Sally, sir," I say.

"Right. Betty," he says. "There's an untapped group of voters that have been neglected for years. We're going after them."

"I'm not Betty either, sir. I'm a man. Same as you."

McDougal laughs. "No man is same as me, son."

He had a point. "Yes sir."

"Sir?" he says with a deep guffaw. "My dad was sir. Call me Alice." McDougal's campaign manager stood behind him violently convulsing and waving his hands about. I looked at him confused ... I didn't get the message.

"Oh," I said. "Thanks, Alice."

I didn't see it coming. I didn't hear it coming. I don't know what happened, or how long I was out. But I'm told McDougal put the palm of his hand directly through my sternum, ripped out my heart and ate it.

I'm not sure how I'm still alive. All I know is that I've been dressed in a skirt since I came to, and I'm chained to McDougal's perch and he's calling me Tina. I've tried to speak several times, but I don't seem to have a tongue. Could be the pills though. I'm just gonna keep my mouth shut 'til all this settles down a bit.

But alas, I'm not here to complain. I'm here to chronicle.

My health and welfare are of little consequence. What matters here is the big man. What matters here is McDougal. And our nation's only hope - McDougal/Newhart in 2008.

Which is why McDougal's new campaign plan stunned me so much. At first, I was quick to dismiss his ideas. But now I see ... "McDougal, that plan's so crazy it just might work!"

"Canada, Tina. We're takin' this to Canada," the big man says. He holds up a color coded red and blue map showing the results of the 2004 election. "Look at this, Tina. Red states and blue states. But look here!" he points to the vacuum above the United States.

I was unable to speak, but the big man could tell by my eyes that I was confused.

"See," he says. "You've forgotten them too. There's a whole motherfucking country up there!" he jubilantly announces. "CANADA!"

He can tell I'm still confused, so he rattles off the few facts he knows about Canada, "It's cold up there. Hockey. Uhhh ... Strange Brew ... Eugene Levy and John Candy. Uhhh ... Green Day, I think."

He thought I didn't know what he was talking about, so to further illustrate his point, he did a pretty decent kazoo rendition of "O Canada" accompanied by Leif Garrett on electric ukelele.

I wanted to tell him I knew about Canada, but wasn't sure where he was going with this, but I dared not try. I was, for a moment, hopeful that the giant lunatic had, in fact, ripped my tongue out. For if I had said the things I wanted to, I'd have been killed or even worse.

The big man was beside himself (quite literally thanks to the heavy doses of phenol barbitol, ketamine, and Robitussin DM the big man was feeding me intravenously and also because he has magical powers that include the ability to self replicate). "THEY DIDN'T EVEN VOTE IN THE 2004 ELECTIONS!" He screamed, adding, "Hell, I can't find any record that they've EVER voted up there."

McDougal's campaign manager knelt and wept softly to himself.