Here’s your easy-to-follow, step-by-step guide ….
- Be an outsider. If you’ve never worked in politics, government, or gone to jury duty — all the better!
- Have a silly skeleton in your closet. You dabbled in witchcraft? Fabulous!
- Don’t let the facts stand in your way! You’re a fiscal reformer even though you might’ve accidentally cost your state an extra billion dollars (or more!) when you managed the budget. Or perhaps, you think your opponent single-handedly caused the financial crisis. So what if there’s 524 other member of Congress. It’s obviously his fault, right?
- Get money from anywhere you can – but don’t talk about it! So you’re running a campaign in one state, but 80% of your campaign is financed by out-of-state donations from shady/mysterious donors. That’s great!
- Speak in soundbites! Nobody wants to hear you talk for five whole minutes about how to fix the federal deficit. Who has the time to hear all that? Short soundbites full of alliteration and rhyming work far better. Isn’t the U.S. Constitution just a haiku?
- Make inane commercials that distort reality. When your opponent says something like “Fundamentally Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are doing fine, but we do have the potential for a huge problem,” you just cut that sentence off halfway through. Context is king, and there’s no need to actually acknowledge that your opponent is right. And be sure to lack any type of decency or respect for the position, your opponent, or the intelligence of the voting public.
That’s enough steps. Nobody bothers to read everything anyway. I’d be surprised if you got this far and noticed there were only 6 items. Or maybe I’ll just call myself a reformer. I cut the pork out of this list, right?!
Vote for me in 2010!
