Campaign Manager's Journal

My new management philosophy (don't try to direct McDougal's behavior, only try to control the damage) had done wonders for my health, however I'm afraid it has caused the campaign to slow to a crawl. The big man is easily distracted and it his hard to keep his momentum up. I thought the unveiling of our new Iraq strategy would be the shot in the arm that the campaign needed, but the Liberal Media has cast doubt on the abilities of Manuel Noriega to effectively subdue a war torn nation like Iraq, given that he has been out of the military strongman game for so long. Some of them have even had the gall to suggest that the Middle East does not need another despot. I would suggest that dictatorship is the only form of governance that those people understand, but we'll save those talking points for the debate...

But, to my surprise, the issue from McDougal's platform that attracted attention this week was not foreign policy, but the environment. Since the United Nations recently released its report on climate change, reducing emissions has become the hot-button issue of the week. McDougal seems an unlikely candidate to be leading the pack on environmental issues, but the other candidates have only offered vague solutions. McDougal, on the other hand, has been coming up with concrete solutions, like his plan to produce biodiesel using the algae that grows in California's Salton Sea.

This plan recently came to the attention of the good people at the Sierra Club, who invited McDougal to speak at one of their fundraisers. Unfortunately, as our Campaign Convoy was pulling in to the convention center, McDougal chose that moment to open up the emergency escape hatch in the bus's roof and throw out several pounds of assorted fast food cups and wrappers. Several members of the Sierra Club were struck by this errant garbage, walking away splattered with ketchup and chocolate non-dairy milkshake product.

This could have spelled disaster for the campaign. It does not look good for a candidate for President to engage in littering in front of dozens of prominent environmental lobbyists. The old me would have been tearing his hair out. But that would have been a waste of time. Instead, I sent the interns on a trip to the city dump, while the speech writers and I went to work at a furious pace.

Half an hour later, McDougal took the podium in front of a hostile crowd, carrying a large black Hefty bag. They immediately confronted him about the litter. McDougal calmly smiled, reached into the sack and pulled out a bulky white item. While the crowd worked themselves into a frenzy of indignity, McDougal surveyed the room. He picked out a man about halfway back, who seemed to be shouting the loudest and hurled the item at him. If the he had caught the bundle he probably would have been OK, but he just stuck out his arm, like a sissy, to shield his face. The bundle burst open, showering him with its contents.

"You know what that is?" McDougal asked.

The man just stammered and started to retch.

"That's right," McDougal continued, "it's a disposable diaper. A very used disposable diaper. One of the earliest, in fact. As you can see, it is much bulkier than the current version. I doubt I could have gotten one of the new ones much beyond the third row. I got it in your city dump."

A murmur was running through the crowd as they backed away from the retching, shit-covered man.

"Now, in the open air, that shit would have dried to a crust and flaked off decades ago. But there's a funny thing about garbage dumps... Here, take a look at this..."

McDougal reached into the sack again. The crowd cringed. But McDougal only pulled out a newspaper. It was somewhat yellowed, but otherwise intact. He glanced at the date.

"1952."

McDougal paused for affect.

"See, organic matter really needs two things to break down. Oxygen and water. But what happens at a landfill is, all this garbage is packed into a plastic-lined hole in the ground, then sealed with a clay cap. So the trash just sits and builds up, higher and higher, year after year, and even the most fragile material never gets a chance to biodegrade. Don't take my word for it though, take a look for yourself!"

McDougal began tossing items from the sack. The members of the Sierra Club jumped up from their seats and made a mad dash for the doors, which, of course, we had locked ahead of time. We wouldn't want anyone escaping before McDougal got his message across. Meanwhile, the campaign staff remained seated in the front rows, clutching plastic sheeting like the crowd at a Gallagher show, and cheering wildly. I was too busy ducking under this plastic to avoid the occasional stray maggot or drip of putrefaction to see all of the items McDougal threw out, but I do remember seeing an open jar of spoiled mayonnaise, a dead skunk and a sickly gray-green T-bone steak. It was like Mardi Gras in hell, and the Sierra Club, still crowded around the locked door, made an easy target.

"Nasty, isn't it? And the hell of it is, in the open air... say in a parking lot, for example... most of this stuff would have been completely gone in a month. What really chaps my ass is, we're paying for all this! Waste disposal is a multi-billion dollar industry, and most of it is just smoke and mirrors. We're lining their pockets so they can hide stuff that would otherwise rot for free. Out of sight out of mind, right? Well, that's just the way they want it. The less time you spend thinking about where your trash goes, the better for them. Of course, we can't just throw our trash in the ditch... Because littering is ILLEGAL. And in most cities you can't even burn your trash. You know who is behind all these laws? THE GARBAGE LOBBY! They've been paying off the politicians left and right so that they will legislate away every option other than sending your garbage through them. For a price. Hey, Gretta Granola, better watch out, they'll be coming for your compost heap next! That's why, if elected President, my first priority will be repealing all litter laws! I don't want my trash hidden away by backroom deals, I want it out where I can see it! I demand accountability!"

McDougal marched, triumphantly off stage. We, the campaign staff, filed quickly out after him before the shell-shocked members of the Sierra Club had a chance to think about what had really just happened in there. I heard that they were stuck with a pretty hefty clean up bill from the convention center. I also heard that, after seeing the bill, a few of them were grumbling about "the garbage lobby." That's just what I heard though...

It's a fact!

Perhaps you have read something on this page and said to yourself, "that can't possibly be true." Well, it probably was, and we are the reason why.

FoMcD employs a large staff of fact checkers, who are constantly on call to answer any questions the writers might have, to review any questionable information before it is published and to help McDougal settle bar bets.

We take our work very seriously and take great pride in maintaining only the strictest level of accuracy in all things.

Actually, in the interest of strict accuracy, I will admit, that we occasionally fudge the details on the rare instances that McDougal stops by the office personally to settle a bet. When he calls in on his cell phone and we have to give him the bad news that, for example, he was mistaken about the number of times the word "fuck" was used in The Big Lebowski, by the time he makes it over here to "rip off (my) dick and fuck (me) in the ear with it" his rage has usually subsided because he forgot why he was coming here. But if he stops by in person... Well, I have no desire to have my earhole fucked, much less with my own penis. So I think these rare lapses in truthfulness can be forgiven.

Here's a fact for you: Yesterday the entire mailroom staff was fired.

Here's another fact: The editorial staff is still in no condition to answer your letters.

So, we have been placed in charge of answering the questions submitted by our readers over the past few weeks. Tomorrow we will be looking for someone to stick with this duty, so you at least have that to look forward to.

Our first question is yet another from the massive assault on our mailroom being perpetrated by one Josh Williams:

Is it true the McDougal campaign eco friendly bio diesel bus has been modified to run on non registered voters?

It is true that McDougal has been actively courting the environmental vote, of that there is no doubt. However, I want you to really think about the question you are asking. Does that make any sense from a political standpoint? Non-registered voters pose no threat to McDougal. In fact they may even be turned to his worldview and properly registered, to his advantage. McDougal's bus runs on a blend of biodiesel brewed from the fats and oils gained from the boiling of the corpses of registered Democrats and Republicans.

Hypersonic writes:

Is it true that Macdougal had a homosexual relationship with Fidel Castro before the start of the Cuban Revolution?

First of all, it is McDougal, not MacDougal. McDougal is of Irish heritage, not of Scottish heritage, as is suggested by the prefix "Mac". This explains all the drinking and fighting.

Although McDougal has demonstrated a penchant for sodomy, he does not consider himself to be a homosexual. The best comparison that can be made for McDougal's opinion on this matter is with the activities of prison inmates. Prisoners regularly engage in anal intercourse, however very few of them view themselves as being gay. This is particularly true of the person making the "delivery", if you will. Doubly so if the recipient is not a willing participant. This activity is undertaken as an act of violence and a means demonstrating their complete power over the victim. It is commonly referred to as "making them your bitch."

With this view in mind, it is crucial to note the timing of the act in question. This did not occur prior to the Cuban Revolution, as you have indicated in your letter. Rather, the act took place several years after. At the time, McDougal was in the employ of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. He had been working in Cuba since the early days of the revolution, and had gained the complete trust of the new communist government. Once he had gathered all the information he thought necessary, and had made arrangements for his escape, McDougal felt compelled to locate Castro and demonstrate to him the awesome power of the United States Government.

Fidel Castro was not the lone recipient. McDougal also taught "lessons" to Raul Castro and Che Guevara. It was a lesson they would not soon forget. Particularly Fidel. Raul and Che managed to escape relatively unscathed, but Fidel was left with a virulent case of gonorrhea. Back at CIA headquarters, McDougal's humiliating one-man assault on the Cuban leadership quickly made him a legend. However, because of the nature of his actions, they were always alluded to using euphemisms in those conservative times. It was one of these, which referred to the passage of that particular infection, that somehow escaped the walls of CIA headquarters and is still repeated to this day, with no knowledge of its true meaning. Think about that next time someone tells you that the CIA "tried to kill Castro with a poison cigar."

Campaign Announcement

McDougal has been sober since some time Sunday afternoon. He's also not slept since. He's been in round the clock meetings with policy advisers, scholars, and strippers.

He's also issued his first actual platform statement to a conservative group in California (a state McDougal claims may or may not even be a part of the United States of America).

He wrote the following in crayon on the back of a Burger King bag and faxed it out this morning:

The Salton Sea is a 380 square miles lake/inland sea in southern
California. It is full of algae; sometimes it gets so bad that the
neighbors complain.
One of the first acts of my administration will be to
establish algae collection stations around the perimeter of the Salton Sea, both
to make it a more pleasant amenity and to produce biodiesel, the sales of which
will go to support my friends in the military-industrial complex.
Thank you
for your support.

Mighty Steed

McDougal has a prize bull named Condoleeza Rice that he uses as his primary source of transportation. He trained for six months on a mechanical bull in a West Texas Juke Joint to prepare for this "lifestyle change."

A recent, but adamant advocate of environmental consciousness, McDougal has shunned all gas-powered transportation and rides Condoleeza Rice to and from his job at the steel mill outside Westchester (30 miles each way) six days a week.

The commute takes him four hours each way, but he uses the time to read, reflect, and assassinate SUV drivers along the turnpike.

Last Monday, he stampeded Condoleeza Rice through a refining facility in Louisiana, killing 41 people by goring them to death*. The event, however, was covered up by the Bush Administration who did not want news of this type of event to reach the masses for fear of copycat attacks.

~~~
* McDougal did the actual goring himself. Condoleeza Rice was not involved in the death of any of the refinery employees.