Among the many surprising twists and turns in the US presidential election perhaps none was more flat-out bizarre than the gradually dawning reality that the identity of the next occupant of the White House would finally be decided not by the leading candidates, nor by their well-oiled machines, nor even by state or federal judges but rather by the admittedly contentious ballots of a tiny handful of people in a single ward in Palm Beach, Florida, most of them believed to be senior citizens of a Republican bent who, when all the votes had been counted, recounted, recounted again and finally certified, much to everybody s surprise not least their own appeared to have bucked all known voting patterns and confounded all exit polls by casting their votes in favour of the state s sole representative of The Natural Poontang Party, former heavy metal maniac and guitar monster, Ted The Fuckin Nuge Nugent.
(He s on a roll Ed.)

Of course, none of this came as any surprise to myself, Samuel J. Snort Esq, rock journalist, brain chemist and now election agent for the mad axe man who ate Detroit and looks like he s about to eat Capitol Hill.
The decision to get on board the Nuge For 2000 campaign was not taken lightly no, I laughed heartily for at least nine minutes before happily agreeing to run the show. But first, I had to be satisfied that our man had all the right credentials for a credible shot at the White House.

Veiny Sausage
On the critical issue of capital punishment I could foresee no problem. After all, the Nuge was a complete fucking gun nut, a man who thought nothing of dressing for dinner in a leopardskin loincloth, and the walls of whose house were liberally festooned with the heads of exotic wild game as well as the odd roadie who d been caught nosing in his master s powder trough.
Imagine then how shocked I was when, at our first campaign strategy meeting, the Nuge declared himself to be more opposed to the chair than fuckin Nader. I could hardly beleive my ears as the man I ve always known and loved as the fuckin Nuge metamorphosed into a bleeding heart liberal right before my eyes.
I mean, for fuck s sake Sam , he complained, whacking some bastard when he s already strapped down and groggy with dope? Hell, that ain t right. As I imagined Ted s presidential hopes disappearing like coke off a mirror, his sombre visage was suddenly illuminated by a wolfish grin. Nope, I say turn em loose in some big safari park and let me head up a posse of good ol boys to hunt em down like the rabid dawgs they are. I mean, if we must fry the sons of bitches, at least let s chase em around the pan a bit first.
So that was okay then; the Nuge was sound on the death penalty. But how would he fare on the thorny issue of personal morality?
Taking Bill Clinton as our touchstone, we found that here too Ted scored excellently on all fronts and, unlike Bubba, without having to lie through his perfectly manicured molars at any stage of the process. So, the fuckin Nuge definitely inhaled, left stains in all the right places and had so many interns in so many confined spaces that it practically amounted to a policy of internment.
All the key elements seemed to be in place: short of actually laying his big veiny sausage right there on the great walnut desk, we figured our boy was practically a shoo-in for the Oval Office.

Befuddled Oldsters
Of course, to be sure, to be sure, we had to deal with the possibility that Jeb Bush might try to deliver Florida for his numbskull bro . We decided on a pre-emptive strike, Ted himself calling round to the governor s mansion for a little pow-wow.
I decided that the only way to talk to a man called Jeb, Ted explained later, was hillbilly to hillbilly. So I looked him square in the eyes and said: Jeb, do these words mean anything to you? And then I jumped up outta my seat and began screaming: Squeal like a pig! Squeal like a pig! Well, Sam, right about there he went as white as a sheet and I knew that the deal was done and I wouldn t even have to whip the banjo out of its case .
Even with Jeb onside, there was always the irritating possibility that the fucking dingbat voters would insist on voting for somebody other than our excellent candidate the one fatal flaw in that otherwise fine and easily corruptible system we call democracy.
In order therefore to ensure that the voters would do what was good for them, we arranged that the contract for printing the ballot paper would go to the great Miami firm of Hernandez & Hernandez, specialists in small print, pyschedelic colours and uncannily accurate facsimiles of various world currencies. The grand old family company (est. 1977) did us proud: by the time they were finished with the ballot paper it looked like something dreamed up by an unholy combination of a hawk-eyed lawyer and someone who d flown one too many missions in the great acid wars.
The result was exactly what we wanted: vast numbers of befuddled oldsters who intended voting for some Christian dingbat or other, ended up punching a hole next to the name of Ted the Fuckin Nuge Nugent. And with various pirate friends of ours cruising the Gulf Of Mexico in high-powered speedboats, with orders to blow all absentee ballots out of the water, the Nuge campaign is now confident that, when all the dust has settled and we ve released the Secretary of State from the cellars of Ted s house the world will wake to the news that the next occupant of the White House is a serial copulator who likes loud music and louder guns, who wrestles alligators for recreation and whose concept of foreign policy can best be summed up in the phrase: Sir, why don t we lay the Missouri 30k offshore and pound the shit outta the sons of bitches, Sir? .
In other words, meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

Your ever lovin Samuel J. Snort Esq