Distance Politics

Following is a bit from something I found after reading this and trying to figure out what the deal was. Follow the link for more.

I called Richard to tell him that he had won the Republican nomination. There was a long pause. He said that he was flattered, but in order to avoid injective "personalities" into the campaign, he would stay in Hawaii. I agreed to form a campaign committee to do the dirty work for him. I thought of the best talent to utilize for a man who--after all--is to take care of the dirt problem in the state, and called on Jon Gallant, a geneticist at the University of Washington, Gene Johnston, and old newspaper writer and commentator on KRAB, and herb Hannum, the only mystical architect I've ever met or heard of. Between the four of us, we fabricated a campaign.

We had seven weeks in which to get our candidate's name in front of the public. Since we weren't about to spend the $100,000 necessary to win public office, we decided on press releases--some whiff of freshness, as compared to all the gunk sent out by other uh . . . REAL candidates.

Our first press release went as follows:

Richard A.C. Greene, Republican candidate for Land Commissioner, fired his opening salvo in what promises to be a ferocious campaign, demanding that the state of Idaho annex a large part of Eastern Washington, especially Spokane.

"The so-called Inland Empire is a trackless waste contributing nothing to the Evergreen State but rattlesnakes and nitwits," Greene thundered from his headquarters in Honolulu. "I'd offer that sandpile to Idaho and if they didn't accept it, I'd invade. It's high time Washington had a foreign policy anyway."

Greene, who knocked off four opponents in the G.O.P. primary with the ingenious strategy of leaving the country, levels no criticism at Democrat incumbent Bert Cole, who has no noticeable foreign policy. "Cole is simply too good a man for this job," opined Greene. "I'd like to see him move on to something more challenging."

The author is apparently Lorenzo Milam who appears to do lots of interesting things all over the place, not least here.