WASHINGTON (Rooters agency) – When !!!!!! announced that he was running for the Republican nomination for President, it wasn’t much of a surprise. He had been publicly hinting at it for some time, as had many members of his family, most of whom had been Presidents themselves at times which much of the country was now trying to forget.
So, if there was not total excitement, the candidate at least started out with a large degree of name recognition, support from much of the party establishment, and a widespread expectation that he was more or less a shoo-in for the nomination. (A shoo-in should not be confused with a shoe-throw, which !!!!!!’s brother attracted.)
However, as other candidates joined the race – Senators Texas Crude and Mark Arboreal, Dr Bent Colonoscope, Governor Rick Risky, Mike Wannabe and, of course T. Ronald Dump – support for !!!!! in opinion polls began to decline.
This was not necessarily an insuperable obstacle; !!!!! had, after all, shoehorned his brother into the Presidency with a sizable minority of votes.
However, in the early candidate debates, !!!!! was judged to have lost ground to Dump, who accused him of “lacking sexism, racism, religious bigotry and murderous instincts,” to which !!!! replied, “I do not” – rather weakly, many viewers thought.
Dump had hit on !!!!’s weak spot. While his views were just as reactionary as those of the other candidates, !!! didn’t express them with sufficient venom, and the media quickly became bored with him. With less than two weeks remaining before the Iowa caucuses, !! was polling in single figures.
In what looks like a desperate attempt to revive interest in his campaign, !! has now rushed to the defense of Republican Governor Dick Sidewinder, who is being accused of poisoning large numbers of citizens (why not: they probably wouldn’t vote for him anyway – especially the children, who aren’t old enough).
The backing for Sidewinder may have been intended to indicate !!’s support for states’ rights and thus to win votes from Iowans who are still waiting for the Confederacy to rise again. Or from the National Weapons Association, which strongly believes that poison is included in the Second Amendment.
But when ! expressed his support as admiration for Sidewinder “standing up,” many voters may have been reminded that the Governor was able to stand up only because he was one of the few citizens who hadn’t been drinking poisoned water. And perhaps they are thinking: ! wants to get into the White House just so he can drink that fancy foreign unpoisoned bottled water.
So how well or badly ? does in the Iowa caucuses could be decisive for him. The polls indicate that most of the Republican support will go to Dump or Crude. If he doesn’t get respectable backing in Iowa, ?? may not survive long enough for a comeback in New Hampshire.
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