Friday, May 9, 2008
It's presidential primary season, and every candidate has been tortured, shot or mutilated!
Apr 8, 2004 | This was when New Hampshire, that somber state, was plagued, for months, by self-immolation. Put simply and more precisely, people were blowing themselves up. Every week someone did it, and the blood and flesh was not always found and cleaned for many days. This was in the arctic depths of winter, when the population had doubled in anticipation of the primaries, when rental-car agencies were booming with business, when the roadside sporting-goods stores were briskly selling gloves and hats to clueless West Coast reporters and functionaries, and when people were blowing themselves up at a rate that was quickly becoming alarming. No one could figure out why the people were doing it. About twice a week for seven weeks thus far, someone blew him- or herself up and no one knew who they were or why they were doing this. It was unsettling to everyone, and it was casting a pall over the entire primary season, usually one filled with so much good-humored rancor and hatred.
Yes, unfortunately, the easy assumption was that most of those blowing themselves up were of the Muslim faith, but there had been no discernible connection made to any terrorist groups, and besides, these men and women -- and of the seven dead so far, four were men, three women -- had apparently taken pains to avoid harming anyone else. Each explosion took place in a public place, a town square or outdoor amphitheater, but always at midnight or thereabouts, when no one was close. Each time, the explosion would be heard, and the authorities would arrive to find the remains of the victims -- if they could be called that -- and the mystery would deepen. No names were yet known, and no motives.
This was during one of the most open presidential contests ever witnessed, when the Republican incumbent, J. Junior Inferior II, was seen as vulnerable and was being challenged from the right and the middle. This was when there were six Democrat rivals, the strongest field ever assembled, some said, a field including two generals, three Purple Heart recipients, and a former senator who'd had all but four fingers blown up in Korea. This was a contest where no Democrat who hadn't been shot, grenaded, stabbed, tortured or somehow physically or mentally disfigured even bothered to compete for the nomination. This was when all six of the candidates carried entire sets of free-weights with them and when the gyms and fitness centers of each city replaced coffee shops as the preferred location for photo ops and mini policy discussions with the surprised citizenry. Toughness was key for all of them, and thus battle injuries, visible scars, medals, tours of duty and bench-press capabilities all became part of one's boilerplate biography. A few weeks earlier, a seventh candidate had been laughed out of the race when it came out he not only had a first cousin who was French, but that he himself had once owned a Eurail pass.
This was when J. Junior Inferior II was being opposed by two Republican challengers, at least one of them serious about sticking around till the convention. Carol O'Mealy was probably not that candidate, was instead a 100-market radio pundit and bestselling author of romantic novels set on nuclear submarines, who had begun as a protest candidate, finding J. Junior too soft on crime and gun opponents and too tolerant of immigrants, foreigners and other deviants. Blond and tall and hideous, she was very popular among older men who bought her books to masturbate to her author photo as she eviscerated single mothers who called to talk about their difficulties paying for child care. The other challenger was Alexander Washington Hamilton, the three-term congressman from Indiana who was widely respected, almost universally liked, both fiscally conservative and socially compassionate, and African-American.
Seeing the incumbent as speaking from the middle but governing from the farthest, most rightward reaches of the political horizon, Alexander Washington Hamilton had entered the race with a more moderate message and with the consent of party leaders, who along with the incumbent saw the whole endeavor as a superlative P.R. coup. By having not only a woman but an African-American presence at every GOP debate, they looked inclusive, progressive even -- the party of the future. It was not lost on many that the Democrats, with their field of six, put forth no women, no black candidates, hadn't thought it was important until too late, and now looked plain silly. The Republicans appeared to be the party of the big tent, of respect for all. They were not threatened by the presence of a woman, of an African-American candidate -- but were the Democrats? GOP operatives asked this at every spinning opportunity, and in this way went to work on young professional women and on the black middle and upper-middle class. Who speaks for you? they asked. The party of Carol O'Mealy, the brilliant bombshell, and Alexander Washington Hamilton, a millionaire developer and co-owner of an arena-football team? Or the party -- yes, Dems! -- of the old boys' club?
Carol O'Mealy was the golden calf around whom the GOP loved to dance, and had been for many years a required presence at any fundraising event. As for her counterpart, the only problem with Alexander Washington Hamilton was ... well, what was it about him? This is what Richard L. Heinie, the head of the American Victory Corporation and the Republicans' most ludicrously prolific fundraiser ($290m by December), was trying to figure out and with which he was hoping his assistant could help him. They were in Heinie's Georgetown rooftop hot tub, watching Hamilton speak on C-SPAN. The hot tub was outside, and the TV was inside, making Hamilton's words -- though he was known as a brilliant speaker -- inaudible.
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