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ASSESSMENT OF THE HIYLH PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN
(This Memo not to be leaked!)
To the Campaign Manager/Cook/Cat-sitter:
The initial dismal projections for our electoral chances were, evidently, far too optimistic and will have to be re-calibrated. The news is even worse than was reported by the Campaign's one paid operative (who, by the way, has been AWOL for the past 72 hours together with the "retainer" funds he demanded upon being hired, only about an eighteenth of which had been earned as of the date of his disappearance).
The analysis we have been able to stitch together from the scraps of paper we found under a half-eaten biali on the windowsill next to his desk, evidencing his occasional forays into the real world, indicates that we do best among those "trending apathetic." While that may seem to be a sliver of a silver lining in an otherwise ominous storm cloud of political self-destruction, apathetic people do not vote. Thus, even with the faint outlines of a pulse registering from the apathetic group on the Like-o-Meter (which measures, among other things, interest in our candidacy), we are still likely to get trounced under every possible scenario.
Here are some raw statistics on our Favorables/Unfavorables:
Among likely Republican voters, we are a laughingstock. Democrats would regard us as a nuisance, were they to give us any thought at all. Tea Party voters would rather get poked in the eye with a sharp stick than utter our name. Ditto, Independents.
We do slightly better with women voters than we do with men voters. As a group, women voters are most likely to want to see us relegated to the back of an immense line at the Registry of Motor Vehicles, only to discover, when reaching the counter, that we have filled out the wrong form, forcing us, like Sisyphus, to go back to square one and start all over again.
We have alienated all major ethic and religious groups, as well as atheists, agnostics, and astrologists.
The unions hate us. Business (big + small) hates us. Wall Street hates us. Main Street hates us. Hollywood hates us. Detroit hates us. Academia hates us. So do the trial lawyers, the medical establishment, and all blue and white collar workers. We are hated in the cities, the suburbs, the exurbs, and rural areas.
The press can't stand us. We have been contacted by a grand total of one radio station which sent us twenty-five dollars in exchange for our promise to stop calling every 12 minutes to demand to be interviewed. Twenty-five dollars happens to coincide with the sum total we have so far raised from any outside source, leaving us to consider that if we are sufficiently annoying in enough markets, we might be able to replicate these results. There are, of course, newer and less expensive ways of getting our message out, such as so-called social media. But no one here can remember any of the passwords, and we have been locked out of all the sites because of too many failed attempts. Besides that, as the manager from the aforementioned radio station put it to us so succinctly -- we don't have a message, just an "idiotic" slogan.
Speaking of which, our bumper stickers came in from the printers this morning. Because of your insistence that the lettering be black on a dark blue background, no one can read them. At best, they resemble nothing more than a smudge, even close up.
As should be evident at this juncture, fundraising has been an unmitigated disaster. We have about as much a chance of qualifying for matching funds from the Federal Election Commission as we do receiving a pleasant surprise under our pillow from the Tooth Fairy. Indeed, the Tooth Fairy is now giving us better odds.
Suffice it to say that these findings do not bode well. Renouncing our citizenship and seeking political asylum in a foreign country with a friendly potentate is beginning to look less like the joke we intended it to be when we first told it to the mechanic who responded to our request for roadside assistance (even though our club membership had expired), and more like the viable exit strategy we have been grasping for ever since we launched this venture. Of course, some us had an inkling that things were headed in this direction when you announced to everybody on Day 1 that our first order of business would be to brainstorm about themes for a "rollicking good" concession speech.
There are no campaign events planned for the immediate future, or, for that matter, ever. This should give the staff plenty of time to sit around and ponder what it would be like to do something productive with their lives for a change, such as look for a real job.
Happily, and despite all of this, everyone here has agreed to slog on. At least as long as the stash of Little Debbie Cakes® holds out.
"Together, we can't do any worse."
