The Carpetbaggers

Have you noticed, Carpetbaggers are IN for the millennium. The
political process seems to be accommodating them excitedly like exotic
mutant strands of DNA seductively beckoning to a drab, desiccated,
depleted gene pool. And so, I’m talking about first lady and erstwhile
Arkansan Hillary Clinton
currently of
Washington, D.C., bred in Illinois, daring to run for the U.S. Senate
from New York State despite never having lived there — maybe never even
visited the Empire State Building OR the Statue of Liberty OR had a
Nathan’s Famous hot dog with Champ Cherry at Coney Island. And I am also
talking about a Philadelphia woman seriously seeking the presidency of
beleaguered Nicaragua while beset by the minor inconvenience of residing
in … Philadelphia.

I’m talking about creative electioneering here. Connect the dots, and
we have a trend.

I’m talking about Hubris. I’m talking about Chutzpah. I’m talking
about Audacity. I’m talking about Blind Ambition and Boundless Greed and
Evil Zeal and the desperate desire to succeed. I’m talking about Global
Constituencies, too, and being in hock to your hairdresser, because what
campaign succeeds without the right image? I want Mr. Blackwell on MY
side.

I’m talking about Republicans noticing Mrs. Clinton’s using
government aircraft to travel to and from New York in recent months. And
Republicans urging her to follow the dictates of federal law to
reimburse the government for the use of the planes at first-class travel
rates — once she’s officially a candidate.

Bicker, bicker.

I’m talking about Mrs. Clinton’s aides, now wary of violating federal
laws prohibiting the use of government resources for campaign purposes,
installing a separate campaign communications system — phones, fax
lines, and computers at the White House — for the first lady’s election
efforts. What a good idea. I’d like one of those, too, guys. How about
it? Get me the same laptop she uses. Not too shabby.

That’s right. I’m also talking about my own candidacy.

Yes, folks, I’ve decided to throw my hat in the ring. I’m ready to
run. Ride this gravy train. Roll these logs. Finally. Why should Dave
Barry
have
all the fun?

Elect me … Queen of the Moon!

FREE CHEESE FOR ALL! Yes, that’s my running platform. Frivolous? Not
really. Think about it. Milk, you should pardon the expression, IS the
perfect food. Cheese is its portable version. (But lose the Milk
Mustaches — they are sooo smugly braggadocious.) My other goals at the
moment are amorphous, my qualifications inconsequential, my cabinet
vague, but that never held a truly motivated candidate back, did it?

I do have clout. California astrologer Anita Sands, one of my major campaign advisors,
assures me, “BY THE WAY, you have your ruler MERCURY (27 Virgo rises) in
the degree of FOOD.” So clearly this is meant to be.

I have other political capital, chiefly glibness under pressure and a
penchant for smooth operators. If necessary, I will become a blonde.
Adam Sandler will play George Stephanopoulos, er, press secretary —
it’s the Youthquake, stupid. There’s no truth to the rumor (ask me) that
I will appear on the Letterman show with my Casio. There’s no truth to
the further rumor (beg me) that I will appear on Imus in the Morning
with my mouth organ or that I will show up (entreat me) on the Howard
Stern Show with my tasseled pasties given to me by Kenneth, er, Blaze
Starr. Hey, I never do that in public. And there’s no truth to the rumor
that I had sex with (YOUR NAME HERE). You call that sex?

My chief credentials for Queen of the Moon? No, not Lunacy, stop
that! Here’s some clout: I confess my past membership in Committee for
the Future (motto: “New worlds on earth, new worlds in space”) seeking
to launch a citizen space expedition in a serious attempt to colonize
other planets by using discarded rocket-ship hardware from the U.S.
government. An amalgamation of military-industrial complex types,
aerospace industry members, and plain ordinary cockeyed optimists like
me, CFF was led by presidential aspirant Barbara Marx Hubbard and her
then-consort, retired military officer John Whiteside. She was the
daughter of Chicago toy millionaire Lewis Marx and sister of Pentagon
Papers’ Daniel Ellsberg’s wife Pat Marx. They were into Synergistic
Convergence (SYNCON). Which preceded Harmonic Convergence by at least a
decade. Is that too complicated? I hope not.

And though it is true that convicted murderer Ira Einhorn
— currently on the lam living high off the hog in France — also was
connected to Committee for the Future and once even read a flowery
statement extolling CFF’s rats-deserting-a-sinking-planet-mission into
the Congressional Record when we were all in Washington, D.C., for a
SYNCON, if elected, I will NOT give Ira a pardon. I assure you, he will
NOT be a part of this administration. I assure you. This is America, is
it not? We like our criminality deeply submerged. I assure you.

Do you think pathological lying is contagious, like a virus?

Moreover, I promise you there are no sex scandals in MY closets —
er, besides that famous TV talk-show host (joke, joke!). And what’s the
big deal about that? We were both single and over 21. The nude pics?
Nah, that was Dr. Whoever. Nor did I work my way through community
college as a go-go-dancer. That was my girl friend with the same name.
Anyway, MY closets contain nothing but … clothes, clothes and
costumes, albeit too many of them but that is being remedied even as we,
er, speak. No skeletons in my closets. Red Skelton is dead so he doesn’t
come around any more. And as far as sex, hey, I’ve been celibate my
first 22 years and my last nine and the rest of the time I was …
married or engaged or into dog ownership. … Chasing my dog kept me
chaste. And because the last 10 years I’ve been on uh, those
anti-depressants with Slavic-sounding names like Prozac and Zoloft —
chief side effects being ISD, inhibited sexual desire and dry mouth —
sex for me, alas, is like a foreign country I don’t visit any more since
my passport has lapsed. So that should be a relief to voters wanting to
avoid the heartbreak of Clintoniasis.

And for you history buffs, well, I was reading up on where
Carpetbaggery came from? You might think those Middle Eastern countries
that weave their own rugs, but no, not them at all. Originally,
Carpetbagger was a derogatory epithet used after the Civil War,
describing Northerners who went South during Reconstruction to make
money. Although regarded as transients because they carried their
possessions in carpetbags, most intended to settle in the South to take
advantage of speculative and commercial opportunities there. While
Carpetbaggers went on to play an important role in Republican state
governments down South, the corrupt activities of some Carpetbaggers
made the term synonymous with any outsider who meddles in an area’s
political affairs for his own benefit. So it’s another word for unsavory
opportunist or outside agitator or durn meddler. And you know what?
Their Southern Republican allies — hand-in-glove good ole boys — were
called Scalawags. With the advent of Carpetbaggers, can the Scalawags be
far behind?

But truthfully, that kind of talk gives me a headache. All I know is,
I want to win, get elected, grow rich. Like any politician. Vote for me,
Queen of the Moon. Will I live there? Um, IS there a residency
requirement? Really?