It was almost too good to be true. Richard Milhous Nixon, the main villain of my political consciousness for as long as I can remember, was finally biting that bullet that he's been talking about all these years. The man that not even Goldwater or Eisenhower could tolerate had finally gone too far-and now he was walking the plank, on national TV, six hours a day-with The Whole World Watching, as it were.
That phrase is permanently etched on some grey rim on the back of my brain. Nobody who was at the corner of Michigan and Balboa on that Wednesday night in August of 1968 will ever forget it.
Richard Nixon is living in the White House today because of what happened that night in Chicago. Hubert Humphrey lost that election by a handful of votes-mine among them-and I had it to do again I would still vote for Dick Gregory.
--From " Fear and Loathing in the Bunker ", by Hunter S. Thompson
So let's start with the obvious question: why a fake candidacy?
Well...why not?
Obviously, I can be just as fake as any real politician, and, as we discussed before, we have years of history together to prove it.
Can I be more useful to the District than Reichert?
Hey...even a fake me can do that.
After all, it's not like there's a high bar to jump over or anything.
It was four years in office before he actually got anything passed...and according to Congress.org, by 2008 he was ranked number 401 out of 435 in terms of how much power he exerts in the House...and that's 9th out of 9 for the Washington State delegation. (Reichert's own Congressional website reports he was ranked 166th out of 435 in 2006-and that means he fell more than 250 spots in a single term.)
So basically, all I have to do is take the Oath of Office...and we're pretty much tied.
Now Dave tries to some extent to " straddle the middle ", as a result he supports environmental legislation but he's against "card check"; he also voted to extend children's health care coverage. He supported the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell".
His stance on Social Security?
Do a search for Social Security on his Congressional website, and you get "No documents matched your query". Look for Social Security as an issue on his site and you can find this:
Congressman Reichert has fought to protect seniors' Medicare and Social Security benefits, preserve their access to needed health care services, and make prescription drugs more affordable
(You have to look under " Seniors " to find it...but at least it's there.)
According to FreedomWorks, Reichert had no position worth reporting on Social Security when they attended his April '05 Social Security workshop...although another attendee reports he had this to say about removing that "tax cap" that represents a giant tax dodge for the richest among us:
Raising the cap was portrayed by all three as a tax hike, which they oppose because "the government shouldn't be taking any more out of families' hard earned budgets."
OnTheIssues has this to say about his Social Security record:
No issue stance yet recorded by OnTheIssues.org.
By the way...did I mention that Reichert is currently serving on the House Subcommittee on Social Security ?
That's a pretty high level of useless, and it's exactly this kind of "get up and go" that explains how Reichert managed to fight his way right on up to number 401 in effectiveness among those 435 Members of Congress.
Me, I support the "Rich People Pay, Too" approach: no matter what your wage income might be, you gotta pay Social Security tax. No more "once you get rich, it's a free ride".
And guess what? If we just made all wage income taxable for Social Security purposes...the problem is actually solved...and it might not even require that much reform.
Law and order?
Reichert is a former Sheriff, and a man who cultivates the image that he personally caught the Green River Killer. When a bill came up to get the Justice Department off the backs of medical marijuana users, Reichert voted " no ".
I am most assuredly not a former Sheriff...and as a fake candidate, I would propose a different approach:
If you elect me, and we can get the bill passed, once a week I will personally dose up Members like Louie Gohmert and Michelle Bachmann and Joe Barton with large amounts of LSD...and I will then transport them right back to the House floor...and then one hour a day we'll set up something like the obstacle course on " MXC " and then have them run it...and I will introduce a bill to set up a special "Premium Content" partnership with C-SPAN that charges $14.95 a month so that you can see the uncensored "GoDaddy" version of the video, with the money to be used to lower the Federal deficit.
I support medical marijuana-but I would limit the co-pay, by law, to $10.
Civil rights?
Reichert opposes same-sex marriage, and only gets a 50% rating from the NAACP...and I'm one of the only people you'll ever meet who was officially notified he was gay by email...and if one of my family members had a "homosexual relationship", unlike some Members, I wouldn't keep it on the " down low ".
I'm more or less broke, just like you-and they tell me that, if you win, there's pretty good health insurance -but I'm not looking for donations, from any source...with one exception:
At the moment this is a fake candidacy, but I'm thinking about asking a group to consider underwriting this as a comedic art project-and if they do, that would be the only money the "fake campaign" would accept.
So there you go: from here on out, there will be more "Manifestos" from the fake campaign-and in the next one, we'll be talking, once again, about how you can support a candidate like Reichert, who's basically a joke...or you can support a candidate like me, who really is one.
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