politics

On the bus with Alan Keyes

www.jokezine.com Campaign 2000 reporter - After a poor showing in New Hampshire, the Alan Keyes express prepared to head down to South Carolina. Alan Keyes greeted his deflated staff: "I've got some good days, it turns out that Greyhound does in fact take the Discover card, so I bought everyone a bus ticket." He then handed out the tickets to the remaining four people on his staff.

While waiting for the bus, several of Keyes supporters came up and met with the candidate. "Thank you for your support," he said, shaking hands, "I'm the only true conservative candidate left in this campaign -"
"- Do you think that you could spare, maybe a few quarters, or even a dollar, so I could get a sandwich over there at Hardee's, I haven't eaten in a day?"
"Well perhaps, I could spare some change if the mainstream media gave me better press, and then all the money wouldn't just go to George W. Bush and John McCain-"
"Just a dollar, so I could get a sausage biscuit sandwich over there at Hardee's?"
"In fact my friend, I myself tried to get a sausage biscuit sandwich at Hardee's, but you see my friend the manager refused to accept a Discover, Amoco or Sears credit card, as well as an endorsed, third party out-of-state check from one of our supporters. But under a Keyes administration, if we had an across the board cut in the marginal tax rate, you and I could have a sausage biscuit sandwich at Hardee's."

The intercom announced that our bus heading for Charleston, South Carolina was ready to board. When we took our seats on the bus, we all went to separate rows, and then pretended to fall asleep on the adjoining seat, so no one would sit by as during the long drive down to South Carolina. When the last straggler came on the bus, we comfortably propped up our feet and turned to listen to Alan Keyes.

His campaign manager gave Keyes a report on the state of the campaign. "It's not looking good the 'Black Republican Leaflet' editorial corner has just changed its endorsement to John McCain the same is true for the 'Jews for Jesus,' so with regards to the latter, we're not going to get our flyers handed out at the airport."
"Well how does the schedule look?"
"More bad news, the rally that we were supposed to have on Charleston Public Access cable at 3 a.m., well it turns out that the large breast ventriloquist, uhm I hear that it's impossible to see her lips move, well she's very popular, and she came back early from a vacation, so we got bumped."
"But the Metropolitan Museum, surely, they're going to have some opening, and I was suppose to give a speech there?"
"That's a paid event, and our campaign coffers are pretty low, instead we're going to the zoo, there's no admission, and I hear that they have a great reptile house. After that, we're going to Pizzeria Uno for happy hour. If you order a medium sprite, you can eat all the free pizza you want."
"I hear from Gary Bauer's people that they don't hassle you much if you just come for the food," another campaign staffer remarked.

At this point the campaign manager turned to me: "Hi, you're the press?"
"Casey Flynn, www.jokezine.com."
"Jokezine.com, which group are you affiliated with?" "Martha Stewart 'Living' is our parent company. You know, Martha Stewart, she's a really mean lady - she ran over her Vietnamese gardener because he accidentally dug up her bulbs instead of weeds."
"Well I'm Alvin Nichols, the campaign manager/ Amway salesman, I've just gotten in some new product, we'll talk later."
He turned to Allan Keyes, and said, "Ambassador - the press has a few questions for you."
"Ambassador are you concerned that John McCain seems to have the momentum at this point in the campaign?"
"I don't know why everyone is so excited about John McCain, a war hero- please! He got shot down in what, his third flight over Vietnam. Why don't we find the guy who flew 50 flights over Vietnam, and didn't get shot down, why aren't the Republicans excited about someone like that. I'm sure that those Viet Cong stewards who work at the White House are real excited for when John 'Queen of Diamonds' McCain shows up after inauguration -"
"-are you suggesting -"
"- could you please let me finish! And what about his imprisonment in North Vietnam, the prison they kept him in was the Hanoi Hilton, okay it's not exactly the Ritz-Carlton or the Four Seasons, but it's still a Hilton, I mean if the North Vietnamese had imprisoned him in the Hanoi Best Western or the Hanoi Motel 6, with their hard, lumpy beds, I'd respect that."
I attempted to move on to a different subject. "Now that you're heading down to the South Carolina primary, are you going to let your feelings be known about the Confederate flag over the state house?"
"This issue has been so overblown. What most people have to realize is that the Confederate flag is a symbol and symbols mean different things to different people, but what do you think this flag represents to most true Americans?" "Slavery?"
"To most Americans, if you ask them honestly to identify it, they'll recognize it as the flag a top the 'General Lee', the name of the car that Bo and Luke Duke road in the 'Dukes of Hazard,' you know just the other night I was watching TNN, and it was showing a rerun of the 'Dukes of Hazard', you know the one where Roscoe P. Coletrain was a hot on the heels of crazy Cooter. . . "
By Casey Flynn