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As Bob Dole might say now, Bob Dole is no Washington
insider. Bob Dole is a plain, ordinary citizen from Kansas
who is running for president of the United States.
What he actually said was that Our campaign will
leave Washington behind to look to America.
In other words, there's a big difference between
Washington
and America.
Washington is this
evil place with bad schools, lots of crime and felons in
high office. The rest of America has bad schools and lots
of crime, but that can apparently be fixed by sending the
right guy to Washington. Nobody in Washington can fix
Washington's problems, but people in Washington can the
same problems in places two or three thousand miles
away.
These days, you run for office by claiming to be an
outsider
who's part of the real world, instead of
Washington.
That would have been tough for Senator Dole, a man who has been on a government payroll, one way or another, since 1942 -- four years before Bill Clinton was born.
Now, if he'll just forego his pension and health care benefits, live on Social Security and Medicare, he'd have a start on fairly effective Old Regular Guy campaign.
He could wear a gimme cap and some faded bib overalls and then sit around the feed store in Russell, Kan., drinking coffee and dispensing his prescriptions for fixing America. If travel were necessary, he could drive a beater pickup, and if anybody asked about Mrs. Dole, he could explain that times were tough and she's got the day job in the family.
But it won't work that way. Instead, he said he would
seek the bright light and open spaces of this beautiful
country and will ask for the wise counsel of its people,
from the sea coasts of Maine and California to the old
railroad towns in the Midwest to the verdant South, from
the mountains of Colorado to the suburbs of Chicago, and in
places in between known mainly to you who call them
home.
Why do people running for the presidency feel compelled to utter such blather?
You know and I know and Bob Dole knows that he will not
seek the wise counsel
of anyone except major
campaign contributors and consultants.
He will have a hard time visiting the railroad towns
in the Midwest.
They're difficult to find, especially
since Bob Dole's buddy Phil Anschutz is busy derailroading
towns. And if anybody sees Bob Dole in the mountains of
Colorado,
(as opposed to the Interstate 70 sacrifice
zone), the vision will probably be the result of eating the
wrong variety of wild mushrooms.
Maybe not. Perhaps some morning this summer, the local losers and derelicts will be drinking breakfast in a saloon when a phalanx of Secret Service agents strides in.
Many of these regular downhome folks, upon seeing all this law enforcement appear, will race for the restroom to flush certain controlled substances down the toilet.
Bob Dole believes in the 10th Amendment and a limited role for the federal government, but he also believes Washington should care about what plants you grow in your garden and the precise chemical composition of your bloodstream. Get government off your back, but into your arteries.
Eventually, things will settle down after the
candidate's arrival. Bob Dole is here to seek your wise
counsel,
he says. Anybody have anything to
offer?
A single mother speaks up. Senator, I've got to go to
work this afternoon, and my babysitter finked out on me.
Could you watch my kids today?
What?
Well, you said that, if given a choice, people would
rather leave their kids with you than with Bill
Clinton.
We've got to get rid of this 'government-as-nanny'
notion,
the candidate mutters to an aide, and don't
ever bring me to a place like this again.
Speaking louder, the candidate points to another raised
hand. Do you have some wise counsel for Bob
Dole?
Senator, will you totally reverse the Clinton
administration's economic policies?
You can count on Bob Dole.
Thank you, senator. You see, back in the Reagan and
Bush days, life here was easy because things were cheap.
Then Clinton got elected, and we've suffered from all this
growth and prosperity. Rents go up all the time, new people
move in and tell us to clean up our acts. So, Senator, many
of us want you to restore those wonderful Republican
economic policies that preserved pockets of
live-and-let-live poverty in the mountains of
Colorado.
Thank you. As Bob Dole has said before, if you want
Bob Dole to be a Ronald Reagan, Bob Dole will be a Ronald
Reagan. And although Bob Dole has benefited immensely from
your wise counsel in the mountains of Colorado, Bob Dole
must depart now for the verdant South to seek more wise
counsel.
(Happy birthday to the other Ed Quillen in Colorado -- my dad in Longmont.)
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