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The Candidates: Part 1

I generally stay away from politics when writing these columns. However, this is a humor column and there are currently 34 or 35 candidates for the democratic presidential nomination and there are only 582 days left until the election. To deprive oneself of such a large area of comical activity and exciting rhetoric would seem a great waste of good material.

Of all the candidates in the race so far only one is from Texas, Willie F. Carter. Although we have already had one president named Carter, Willie F. Carter is unrelated. Willie Carter is an experienced candidate as this will be his 5th run for the presidency. His best showing to date came in 2000 when he garnered 30 votes to come in 17th in the New Hampshire primary. He has filed the necessary federal paperwork to make the run in 2004.

Another even more experienced candidate is Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr. from Virginia, running for the 8th time. LaRouche claimed to be the world’s leading economist of the 20th century. So far as I know he hasn’t updated that credential for the 21st century. He recognizes there are problems in the world and attributes them to Queen Elizabeth, the Pope, Jane Fonda, Ted Kennedy, George Bush, the CIA, the FBI and many others. He is unclear about how he will solve these problems or what he will do about their causes if elected president.

Gary Hart, once considered one of the best political minds of the late 20th century, is in the race for the 3rd time. In his first attempt in 1984, he lost to Mondale. (My computer spell check doesn’t like this word; it thinks it should be “mundane.”) The 2nd time was in 1988. He lost to Rice. Well, he didn’t exactly lose TO Rice so much as he lost BECAUSE OF Rice. That was the year that Republican women gave their heart to Bush. The Democratic women….

The latest candidate to declare for the democratic nomination is Quella U.A.C. (Bubba) Krackenknocker, from somewhere in Iowa. I recently spoke to Mr. Krackenknocker by phone to try to determine why we should support him for the presidency.
Ramon—“Hello, Mr. Krackenknocker. This is Don Ramon. I’m a newspaper columnist and I want to talk to about your run for the democratic presidential nomination.”
Krackenknocker—“Hello, Mr. Ramon. You will be surprised to know that you are the first newspaper person to talk to me about my campaign.”
D.R.—“Actually, I’m not surprised, because I couldn’t find any information about you. Could you please give us some background? Start with why you have so many names.”
Q.U.A.C.K.—“Well, Don, my mother is Jewish and my father is Buddhist. I, myself, am half Hispanic, half African American, half Oriental, half Cajun, and 100% all-American. But no French at all. I’m a non-French Cajun. I’m sure I don’t have a drop of French blood in my body. No sir.

“My full name is Quella Udel Alford Craincross Krackenknocker. Because of my ethnic background I can relate to the needs of all major ethnic groups in the country (except the French) better than any other candidate in this race.”
D.R.—“That’s pretty impressive. But while we are talking about groups, what about the women of the country? They are going to want to know how you stand on women’s issues.”
Q.U.A.C.K.—“I have a much better grasp of women’s issues than any other candidate. In fact, before I had my sex change operation 6 years ago I was heavily involved in women’s causes.”
D.R.—“So how long were you a woman?”
Q.U.A.C.K.—“Forty-two years.”
D.R.—“Were you involved in politics at that time?”
Q.U.A.C.K.—“Yes. As a matter of fact, I was. I was a hairdresser and would spend hours every day discussing politics. You can really learn some good things listening to what people say under the influence of permanent wave fumes.”
D.R.—“Let’s discuss the issues you are going to focus on in your campaign. First, what about the economy? How do you stand on taxes or some kind of economic stimulus plan?”
Q.U.A.C.K.—“We had a candidate who once said, “Read my lips. No new taxes.” Did you ever notice that that candidate didn’t move his lips much when he talked? Anyway, my platform will be, now get this, NO MORE TAXES. Yes, you heard right. No more taxes. I’m going to repeal all income tax laws. We don’t need an income tax because there is a better way to make money. There was, in fact, a recent ad in the newspaper “Introducing a better way to make money.” It involved working in the FOREX market. This is the Foreign Currency Exchange. According to the ad this is a safe money making proposition. The ad said there are more profitable trading opportunities here than in any other market. One man testified that he had made $1000 every day this week. When I’m President I will appoint a committee of White House staff people, select Cabinet members, Congressional leaders, and a couple of folks from each state. This committee would attend the “FREE 2-hour Introductory Seminar” in Houston to learn about trading in the FOREX market. This committee would then become a cadre to teach other government people how to do it.

“Studies have shown that most government workers spend about 3 1/2 hours per day looking at pornography on their computers. I would cut that down to no more than 1 hour per day and the other 2 1/2 hours could be spent trading in the FOREX market. According to the ad that’s all it takes. Soon a million government employees would be using the system. If the one million workers each make $1000 a day, that’s $1,000,000,000 a day.

“Then we would employ part time folks to work at home on a commission basis. Soon we could have 100,000,000 people trading in the FOREX market. That could yield a profit of $1,000,000,000,000 per day. Why would we need any taxes at all? NO MORE TAXES. That’s my economic policy. Pretty good, huh?”
D.R.—“It’s mind boggling. I would like to talk about your other proposals but my wife Lynn says it’s time for me to vacuum the living room. I’ll call you again next week. Thanks for your time.”
Q.U.A.C.K.—“Thank you.”