There's One, Only!

Celebrity Interview

In a There’s One, Only! first, I managed to land an interview with a Kerry Campaign insider. This person has access to all of the Kerry Campaign Think Tank members and is willing to share her information with the world.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you my interview with Olga, the night janitor at the Kerry ’04 Campaign. (What do you want from me? I’m no Frank J., this is about as big a political personage as I’m likely to get.)

GEBIV: So Olga, tell us a little about yourself.

Olga: Well. I was recently hired as the nighttime Sanitation Supervisor for the Kerry Campaign Headquarters. I guess they had to fire the last one after she and Mrs. Heinz-Kerry got into a little argument.

GEBIV: Do you know what it was about?

Olga: From what I heard from the rest of the staff, my predecessor complained of all of the ketchup stains on the carpet in the break room.

GEBIV: And they fired her for that?

Olga: No, they fired her because she said that they should use Hunt’s, because it would be easier to clean up.

GEBIV: Ouch. Not what you want to say to Teresa! So, what information do you have for us about the Kerry Campaign?

Olga: Nothing very up to date, I’m afraid. Most of my information is at least 24 hours old, so it usually has no relationship to what they are doing right now.

GEBIV: I can see what you mean. But how are you getting your information?

Olga: Usually from the trash cans in the conference room. They always have to throw out the previous day’s strategy when they start work each day.

GEBIV: But while that wouldn’t give you much idea of what they are going to do tomorrow, that kind of information would be interesting for telling us where they stood yesterday. Something that can be quite confusing without a score-card of some sort.

Olga: Yes. Exactly. For example, during the CBS Rathergate Memo scandal, I was able to track their policy as it shifted from condemning the President, to claiming no knowledge of the story, to condemning CBS, to supporting Dan Rather, to vowing never having talked to Burkett, to saying that they only talked briefly on the phone.

GEBIV: Wow. Kind of like they don’t know when to stop zig-zagging.

Olga: That’s right. And at the same time, Kerry went from supporting the war on terror and the US allies, to saying that the US doesn’t have any allies, to saying that the US has only puppet allies, to saying that he is the only one who can get allies to join us in the war in Iraq. Which, depending on the time of day, he said was or wasn’t part of the war on terror.

GEBIV: Bewildering. How about his stance on the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth?

Olga: Well, he’s gone from having his people call them attack dogs sent by the President, to saying that his advisors were wrong in keeping him from attacking the Swifties, to saying that it was his advisors idea that he attack them. He still hasn’t tried to refute anything that they have said, mostly because he knows that they are mostly using his own words in their ads.

GEBIV: That hasn’t stopped him before. I mean contradicting his own words is kind of a specialty of his.

Olga: I think that is partly because of his new advisors. The notes that I’ve found in the trash show that they are, or at least were, telling him to show that he is a better war president because of his Vietnam service, while telling him not to bring up his Vietnam service because it invites attacks by those swifties. They’re also telling him to attack the President about his Guard service while saying that the election is not about events that happened 30 years ago.

GEBIV: Quite the convoluted message. One last thing before you go, if you please. You said that you had some of the campaign slogans that they came up with, and eventually discarded. Could you share some of those with us?

Olga: Certainly. Let’s see, there was “Kerry/Edwards ’04. Because you deserve both sides of the issues.” And then there was “Kerry ’04. He supports the troops.” Which was shortly followed by, “Kerry ’04. Because he doesn’t support the war.” Which was followed by, “Kerry ’04. He can win the war in Iraq.” And “Kerry ’04. He’ll get us out of Iraq.” And my favorites, which ran at the same time, “Kerry, the war hero!” and “Kerry, the anti-war hero!”

GEBIV: I imagine that you’ve got quite a collection of bumper stickers.

Olga: Yeah, they throw out a couple of different designs each day. I won’t have to buy duct tape for a couple of years. I just use a magic marker and black out the front, and use it to tape whatever I want. I do have to be careful using it on some things though. It seems that they won’t stick to anything for too long. But it does work well for temporary stuff.

GEBIV: Kind of like Kerry’s presidential dreams. Temporary. Well, thank you very much for letting me do this interview. And please call me if you get anything really interesting.

Olga: I certainly will.

There you have it folks, an interview with someone from deep inside the Kerry campaign.

Oh, and in case any of you were wondering what Olga looks like. (I’m figuring Harvey's thinking about this right now) She’s imaginary, so paint whatever picture you’d like. ;-D