Posted by
This Guy on Friday, August 11, 2006 11:00:52 AM
I've decided to run for President in 2008. I was going to wait a
while, but I've just finished developing a powerful campaigning tool,
and I don't think I can keep it under wraps any more. It's so
incredible, no challenger will be able to withstand its calculated,
brutal effectiveness. I like to call it my Anti-issue Defense System,
or ADS for short, and it runs on a simple Two-Party Power Supply. All
I have to do is declare myself as a representative of whichever side
has the most registered voters, and I'm virtually guaranteed a win.
Undoubtedly
other people will want to be President too, and will challenge me,
citing nonsense such as my "lack of political experience" and an
"incoherent platform" and a "lack of knowledge concerning fundamentals
of history and economics" as weaknesses. But that's where my ADS comes
in. Whenever such an attack occurs, my ADS automatically activates,
effectively defusing the situation through a series of escalating
mechanisms.
First, the ADS employs Moral High Ground Deflectors,
dismissing any issue raised as a smear-tactic deployed by the evil and
ignorant henchmen of That Other Party, intent on attacking me
personally, rather than focusing on Important Issues that Matter.
If
the issue continues to garner attention beyond a couple of days, stage
two of my ADS deploys Reflexive Secondary Issue Chaff, which points out
a fault of the Challenger's party in broad terms and disperses it
through various means incessantly for 72 hours. After that point, all
but the most persistent of concerns will have been forgotten.
In
the unlikely case that stage two is ineffective, my ADS goes into
offensive mode, where it fires salvos of Obscure Voting Record Rockets
at the Challenger who raised the initial issue. These are particularly
difficult to defend against, because they spiral wildly from their
point of origin, and are often fired from unexpected locations. Most
often, even when successfully avoided, these rockets damage their
intended target near the edges.
Heaven help any Challenger whose
issue escalates to the dreaded fourth stage of my ADS. It's simply
called "The Exhumer". I don't really like to talk about it, because it
is so awe-inspiringly insidious, I'm almost ashamed to have created
it. But in short, The Exhumer uses a
powerful search engine
to locate every single bit of information ever recorded, by any means,
in any medium, made either by the Challenger, or in reference to the
Challenger. I'm talking everything ... newspaper articles, campaign
speechs, yearbook signings, elementary school essays, camera phone
pictures, everything. It then applies an algorithm that filters out
context and rates words or images on their potential offensiveness to a
targeted audience. After matching highly rated material with the
largest possible target audience, it then unleashes its findings. The
scariest thing about the Exhumer, though, is that once it's activated,
it can't be turned off. Even after its source has been discovered and
disabled, its findings frequently echo into eternity. Really, it was
designed to be more of a deterrent than something to be implemented.
Finally,
my ADS has a passive mode, which accomplishes two things: 1) it quietly
hums a pleasant picture of me out over the airwaves, and 2) it subtly
reminds people that the only votes that count are marked either
Democrat or Republican. I have never been able to get it to
subliminally deliver any information of substance, but it should be
sufficient to give people the impression that I'm likeable, and that I
play for the right team, which is really all I'm after.
As long as I keep people focused on how much worse off they'll be if the Other Candidate wins, I'll be in good shape.
I look forward to spending your tax dollars soon!