Thursday, March 6, 1997
DOLE:
Clinton’s victory resulted from candidate’s blandness, weak
policiesBy Blake Newton
The Kentucky Kernel
Courtesy of University Wire
It may seem a little late for a commentary on the 1996
presidential election, but as thousands of JFK nutcakes have
proven, it is never too late for a stupid conspiracy theory.
A conspiracy involving the 1996 presidential election? Nonsense,
you say.
Beyond the layers of corruption inherent to any presidential
race, the election ran smoothly and Bill Clinton won, just as
everybody said he would.
Well, of course he won. There was a conspiracy.
What kind of conspiracy? Two words, kids: Bob Mole. (Note: Even
if you’ve already guessed what I mean by "Bob Mole," read on anyway
for some brilliant political satire).
My theory was born on Jan. 20, Inauguration Day, when I noticed
that it was Clinton who was being inaugurated. This was my first
clue: Clinton had won the election.
(I would’ve gotten this clue back in November, but my TV was
broken.) More importantly, I noticed that I was completely at ease
with the fact that Clinton was re-elected.
I then kept asking myself why it was no surprise to me that
Clinton got the vote. I wasn’t a big Clinton supporter. I didn’t
think that he was the "only" man for the job. Nor was I a
pessimistic Republican who assumed that Clinton would win despite
his inability to preside. In fact I had, and have, very little to
say about Clinton … except that I knew he would win.
The real kooks in the reading audience are now expecting me to
reveal that the Clinton campaign had us brainwashed into voting
Democratic.
That would be the only way Bill could have beaten Bob, right?
Read on, friends.
Wondering if I was alone in not being surprised by Clinton’s
victory, I did an in-depth survey to see if anybody was shocked
when he won. As is turns out, 0 percent of the people living in my
apartment were surprised.What does this sweeping survey prove?
It says, essentially, that there was no way Dole could have
beaten Clinton, and everybody knew that, because Dole was a
terrible candidate.
Because Dole was a fake candidate.
That’s right. Bob Dole was Bob Mole, planted as the 1996 GOP
presidential candidate by the Democratic Party.
I don’t know how they did it. I don’t know if Dole was a willful
participant, or just an ignorant patsy. I don’t know how long ago
the plan was initiated (Majority Leader Bob Mole? Sen. Bob Mole?),
but Democratic scheming is the only way he could have gotten the
Republican nomination.
Think about it. Dole sucked. He was a terrible, emotionless
speaker ("Bob Dull" was a popular nickname); he’s older than
science; he didn’t appeal to either conservatives or liberals with
his ultra-moderate campaign personality; and his 15 percent tax cut
plan was the emptiest campaign "strategy" ever.
Dole also picked a football player as his running mate.
Now, I don’t have anything against football players in the White
House (especially as impotent VP bootlicks), but maybe Dole’s
hearing aid was broken and he thought that he needed to pick a
"running back." (Has that joke already been used? You make the
call!)
Most importantly though, it was actually Bob himself (i.e. not
some impersonator) who sang "Dole Man" at a campaign rally.
Maybe the people who nominated him didn’t know about his cuckoo
tax cut "ideas" or his plan to play super-moderate man, but they
had to realize that his droning speaking style, out-of-touch sense
of humor, and Bela Lugosi looks could not have been appealing to
anyone.
Using Occam’s razor, it just seems more likely that the
candidacy was fixed than that Dole was actually picked to win by
intelligent people.
There just had to be somebody better than Dole somewhere in the
Republican Party, right?
Anyway, it’s obvious folks, and I think it’s pretty scary, that
one of our two functional political parties (my party, the Whigs,
died off in the ’70s, I think) can so manipulate and sabotage the
other as to put a born loser in the GOP hot seat.
But there is one thing that’s even scarier: Despite the fact,
assuming my theory is right, that Dole was set up for a fall as a
fake candidate, he still got something like 40 percent of the
popular vote. Looks like the public was almost too stupid for the
Bob Mole plan to work. So what can the Democrats do to win next
time?
Plant a good Republican candidate?