The Candidate 2022 (Daily Planet email #949)

Hello! I am <candidate> running against <opponent> for the job of <elected position>. Now, I don’t expect you to learn all about me from a short speech in an ugly room. I can’t imagine you’d want to research my record and learn about all the things I’ve tried to do for you, and for me. All I ask is that you make an impulsive and emotional reaction based on my frequent, sensationalistic, and disturbing advertisements against my opponent. And I’m sure they would ask you to do the same.

For eight months, I have been the subject of numerous and profligate negative campaign ads, and so today I am forced to respond: Believe them! They wouldn’t spend good money promoting those ideas if it wasn’t important. They wouldn’t say these things if they weren’t true, because that wouldn’t be honorable. And they wouldn’t waste your valuable time with inaccurate, spurious information for that would be a moral offense against the limited time we have together on this Earth.

Yes, I am pro-arson. I am in favor of violent crime. I am partial to aggravated assault. I’ve a hankerin’ for homicide. Raising taxes is my raison d’être. My nephew’s into nepotism. I like guns, but only when I’m the guy holding one. Because of my anti-infrastructure tendencies, I love potholes and also did I mention I hate jobs, except the one I am running for? Yeah, I’m against education — how would I ever get elected otherwise?

Sure, I’ve lied to you. What, am I the first? You hit “send” on some artistic photos and see how forthcoming you get. Or when your ex-girlfriend’s being arrested, you’re gonna want to help out. And when all you wanna do is make it through an SEC hearing on the same day as your other family’s son’s first birthday and some dude sells you an 8 ball that’s half cornstarch, you’d want to make your dissatisfaction known! I know I did.

Yes, I paid hush money to a prostitute. When you’re running for public office, that’s how you do it. Of course, I claimed less than my fair share of taxes. Well, wouldn’t you? How do you think I could afford lawn signs all the way from here to the robot penguins that patrol the edges of our vast and beautiful, flat planet? Absolutely, I am against climate change, but you know what I’m against even more? Hard work. And I think that shows we have more in common than either of us thought.

Am I a reptile-man? Look — that’s just plain ridiculous. And partly true. Percentage-wise, I am more of a man-reptile, but I still identify as cold-blooded. Hence, all my trips to Cancun. But be assured, I will work relentlessly to address the everyday, tiresome concerns of humans, corporations, sports franchises, and magnanimous lobbyists as long as they are binary U.S. citizens who believe the same things I do.

My opponent’s slogan is “Make crime illegal again.” And to that I counter: We’ve tried that and it didn’t work. We should continue along this path of legal crime and see how that goes. Could it be worse? In my mind, we’ve had worse. Let’s be better. Naw, screw that, let’s be best.

I hope you have found my honesty refreshing, not refreshing like an ice cream cone, but like when you see someone in a movie kick a dog and you know right away what they’re about. I’d like to count on your vote next week, provided someone honestly counts all the real votes. I’ll know it was accurate if I win.