Campaign Manager's Journal

It has been a rough couple of weeks in the McDougal campaign, but things are finally starting to look a bit better. I think this month we have finally disproved the old adage that all press is good press. I don't think any Presidential candidate has ever gone from completely ignored to universally reviled as quickly as McDougal did with his Elvis's birthday speech. I find it more than a bit unfair that people have reacted so negatively to McDougal's Iraq exit strategy of reinstating Saddam Hussein as dictator, when it is a plan that is inherently unworkable. Dead men do not make effective dictators. With the possible exception of Fidel Castro. I have some doubts about the current situation in Cuba...

Anyway, the war in Iraq is such a hot button campaign issue, it would be political suicide to go back out on the campaign trail without an Iraq exit strategy. The major parties have already taken their sides, with the Republicans digging in for the Long War and the Democrats standing by for the chance to Cut and Run. This leaves precious little middle ground for third parties such as ourselves.

McDougal spent so much time carefully crafting his Iraq policy, it would be a shame to throw it away outright. After many late night, cocaine and whiskey-fueled discussions on the bus, his plan started to make more and more sense to me. After all, propping up friendly dictatorships is the strategy that won us the Cold War. Somewhere along the line we lost direction and started pursuing this misguided "spreading the seeds of democracy" policy that has caused us nothing but misery. It's time for a return to the good old days.

Of course, there's still the problem of finding a suitable dictator...

Sure, there are a lot of vicious bastards out there, but the best ones are already running their own countries. Picking one of them is out of the question. You can't solve a crisis in an unstable shithole by creating a power vacuum in another unstable shithole. In that direction lies never ending chaos. And the past five years have been rough on out of work dictators. Milosevic, Pinochet, Amin... All dead. I was beginning to fear that we would have to craft another Iraq strategy, but just when I was on the verge of giving up, I saw this news item in USA Today:

Manuel Noriega scheduled for September release

Campaign Manager's Journal

After 16 days at sea we finally washed ashore in Florida. The Coast Guard was extremely confused to encounter a rickety boat filled with white people, American citizens no less, so they detained us for a week before deciding that there was nothing they could charge us with. When I got back home, all I wanted was a long shower, a shave and several days sleep in my nice comfortable bed. Instead, I was met with an answering machine full of messages from McDougal, asking me what the hell was taking me so long to get to Memphis. The last few messages, before the tape ran out, contained many threats of violence if I did not arrive in Memphis in time for Elvis's birthday celebration. I took a quick shower, shaved and began packing my bags. I could sleep in the plane.

Given their similar taste in every possible excess, it should be no surprise to the readers of this weblog that McDougal and The King were great friends back in the '70s. But even I was surprised to learn that McDougal had been invited to be a keynote speaker at the Elvis's birthday celebration taking place at Graceland. I hurriedly arranged for banners and campaign literature to be sent by express courier. This would be our greatest opportunity yet to reach the masses with a McDougal campaign appearance. The inflatable gorilla would have been a great attention-getter for the NASCAR set, but getting it to Memphis in time would have been a logistical impossibility. And besides, I doubt the management of Graceland would have allowed it anywhere near the grounds.

Imagine my surprise and dismay when, finally getting his turn at the lectern, McDougal launched into a eulogy for Saddam Hussein. He did not mention Elvis once in his speech.

McDougal went on to explain that the Bush administration forced Saddam's execution as a way to undermine the Iraq exit strategy that he had been working on in secret and was waiting for the optimum moment to unveil on the campaign trail. This was news to me. McDougal never gave me any indication that he had spent even a nanosecond thinking about how he would handle the Iraq situation if elected. The following is an excerpt from his hour-long speech.

"Saddam was the only person who ever demonstrated the slightest ability to control the various factions in Iraq. Sure, his methods were inhumane... But opinion polls now show that the American people don't care what happens in Iraq. They just want our troops out. But leaving Iraq in chaos is no kind of solution.

I was prepared to offer America a real solution.

By restoring Saddam Hussein to power, I would have guaranteed the return of a crushed and defeated Iraq. The Iraq we knew and loved.

We had Saddam right where we wanted him. He was contained. Embargoed. And he scared the hell out of the Iranians, I'll tell you that much.

I miss Saddam dearly. He was everything you could want in an enemy. He was undeniably evil. But he was also comically inept. He was like a James Bond villain. Although he was constantly grasping for a weapon of world domination, you knew deep in your heart that he didn't have a snowball's chance of success.

Who among you, and be honest now, who among you was actually afraid of Saddam Hussein attacking the United States?

Having Saddam Hussein as a nemesis was like matching wits with a cartoon coyote."

At this point McDougal raised his right hand from behind the lectern to reveal a Saddam Hussein hand puppet.

"I know! I'll use my ACME SuperCannon to fire nuclear warheads at that infidel roadrunner!"

The speech continued on for another twenty minutes as a ventriloquist act, with the Saddam puppet quizzing McDougal on Mid-East politics.

The conclusion of McDougal's speech was greeted with stunned silence by the legions of Elvis fanatics. McDougal pumped both hands into the air, fingers in triumphant V's, in a Richard Nixon salute and marched off stage, grinning from ear to ear.

I don't think this will play well in the heartland.

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.

Did somebody say McDougal's?

For a few years in the late 1970s most of the delis in New York City were selling a kind of a sandwich called "The McDougal." The Big Man's vices were considered excessive by even the Studio 54 crowd, which is saying quite a lot. Of course, in '70s New York that was exactly the kind of thing that would make one a celebrity. The sandwich was as excessive as the man whose name it bore. A whole Virginia ham was thin-sliced, topped with a full wheel of melted Stilton cheese (which stunk like sweaty feet), a whiskey-mushroom sauce and grilled Scotch Bonnet peppers, all of which was served between two family-sized chicken pot pies. The price was also excessive, averaging at $149.99. Most chose to split the cost and the sandwich among a large group because of the enormity of both, but not everybody would share. Elvis Presley particularly fond of The McDougal during the year preceding his death. Now, unless you knew of a deli that was truly disreputable, you couldn't get The McDougal prepared in what the in crowd considered the real way it should be served: topped with a generous mixture of cocaine and heroin. It was up to you to add that particular finishing touch. It is rumored in certain sandwich circles that it was actually an over-seasoned McDougal that took the life of John Belushi. I'm not sure I believe that though. Today it is impossible to find a deli that will even admit to knowing about The McDougal. Every once and a while I hear about some back alley deli in an unfashionable neighborhood that has put The McDougal back into production, but so far all have turned out to be mere rumors. It seems that kind of irresponsible sandwich-making died out with disco.