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As Election Day drew near, candidates Charlie Cleanblood and Peter Purine were locked in a desperate battle. The struggle was fierce, for the victor could leave his bankrupt local business to set up shop in Washington, D.C. After just two to four terms of apprenticeship there, the winner could receive a $500,000-a-year position as a lobbyist and consultant.
Cleanblood took the early lead after announcing that
bleeding-heart court decisions were responsible for foreign
and domestic terrorist conspiracies. He promised to allow
the police to employ the rack and thumbscrew while
questioning suspects. I can guarantee you that these
criminals will be pleading for more than the fifth before
too long.
The audience always joined his laughter.
His lead looked insurmountable until Purine said it was
time to revive the auto-da-fe. Some wimp liberals might
complain,
he sneered. But let me remind you of a
lesson from history. The honest God-fearing hard-working
people in a wholesome little American town were once
terrorized by night-riders. The horrifying raids continued
until they got a judge who shared our belief in traditional
values. I'm sure the liberals told Judge Hathorne that
strict sentences wouldn't stop this crime wave. But I can
tell you that it's been almost 300 years since the good
people of Salem had any trouble with witches.
In his next round of television spots, Cleanblood
claimed that vital job-producing industries are being
strangled by regulation. Our oppressed industrialists have
been deprived of their traditional rights to dump whatever
they want into rivers and ravines. And thus,
the
candidate explained, we are poisoning the wellsprings of
our prosperity.
Purine struggled to regain the lead. When he spoke to
labor groups, he called for import restrictions to
preserve the American standard of living,
and when he
spoke to suburban audiences, he said America plays a
vital role in world trade, and that role must not be
diminished.
He persuaded his estranged wife to bring his children to
stand by him for a smiling photograph to be taken, which
was widely distributed on brochures. He courageously
denounced pornography, welfare fraud and military waste.
Even so, his campaign floundered until he accused
Cleanblood of being soft on drugs.
At a news conference, Cleanblood denied the accusation.
With 50,000 one-dollar bills on the table between him and
the television cameras, Cleanblood said he was escalating
the war against drugs. The insidious disease called drug
abuse strikes right in the home, and it festers there in
total secrecy. But we are going to close that loophole. I
shall introduce a law that pays rewards of up to
$50,000
-- he pointed at the impressive stack of cash
while riffling one bundle for the close-up shots -- to
any children who save their parents.
Once the parental
offenders had been thus reported, Cleanblood promised they
would receive life sentences to prevent repeat
offenses.
Purine used his big chance the next day. My opponent
says he despises drug users,
Purine proclaimed, and
yet just yesterday he appeared in public holding the
portrait of a drug user. Not just one portrait, either, but
thousands. He waved those portraits brazenly when
impressionable youngsters were watching television. He even
offered them as a prize to innocent children, and never
uttered one word of warning that those were pictures of a
man who smoked marijuana. Not only that, George Washington
actually cultivated the dangerous hemp plant at Mount
Vernon.
Purine then pulled out a dollar bill, and lit it before the cameras. The candidate pulled out a $50 bill, with its portrait of Ulysses S. Grant. When it ignited, he explained that Grant had abused controlled substances while completing his autobiography. As a $500 bill went up in smoke, the audience learned that William McKinley had endorsed Vin Mariani, a cocaine-laden patent medicine. Purine challenged Cleanblood to join him in submitting a urine sample.
Cleanblood upped the stakes to a fecal sample, and Purine accepted. The voters were now getting the same thing they had received all through the campaign, but now, at least, it was official and in tangible form.
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