Dear Media:
I have decided to run for President and am inviting you to the kick-off announcement for my campaign. From what I gather in watching all of your coverage, it is a bad idea for a candidate from the left to have amassed any wealth. This is very encouraging for me. Not only am I not well off, but I live in a trailer park. I am hoping to kick my campaign off here this weekend. Although I do not ride a motorcycle like Scott Walker, the guy down the road, we call him Drunk Mike, has a motorcycle. I'll bet he would be glad to ride me through the park with a flag and maybe a bullhorn or something. Would you like to come cover that and ask the Americans who live here what they would like from a leader? Because you all spend so much time finding ways to discount positive economic news that comes out each month, I guess my neighborhood would be a true representation of an American community and its needs would be the perfect projection for your audience.
My neighbors have started a SuperPac to help me get started. They have already raised enough to pay for my internet through the election. I will be running the majority of my campaign online because I don't have a lot of money to pay for travel. You are all welcome to visit me here for interviews, though. Because my time and funds are so limited, however, I would like to get a few tips from you all before you come. I hope you don't mind taking the time to help me understand.
I guess its the campaigning itself that is confusing for me. I am a Democrat and I am a woman. I notice that all of the candidates on the right are men (aside from Fiorina who even you all don't seem to really be taking seriously) and are allowed to pretty much dictate which questions they answer. Will I be afforded that same courtesy? How does it work, exactly? It seems as if I just scowl and refuse to answer or change the subject you will back down. Or do I publicly condemn you for having a conservative bias and shame you into asking me the questions I want to answer? It seems kind of rude, honestly. I would really rather not have to do either. So if you could just stick with questions that are relevant to Americans, I think we would be fine.
Although the questions the candidates on the right seem to favor are those that they can turn into a tirade on Secretary Clinton, I would really rather you just focus on the issues I would like to tackle during my 4 or 8 years leading the country. I hope that you don't spend too much of our time together asking me to trash talk any of the other candidates. I could write you a book. Or a series of books, probably. Okay. I could actually write you a series of tomes, but the point is - if I have less than eighteen months to tell my fellow citizens how I envision our future, I would rather leave my diatribes for 2024.
I sincerely love my country. I guess that I am supposed to start there. From what you have reported to me, I am then supposed to tell America the reasons I love her. I should begin by defining my patriotism. Correct? Well, I do not believe in the idea of American Exceptionalism as those on the right keep defining it. I do hope that we can work toward being exceptional, however, and I have a lot of ideas about how to get us there. Frankly, it is hard to decide how to define my patriotism in a way that your audience will appreciate. It seems that everyone has been conditioned to believe that it is found in things I cannot understand. Please forgive my naivete if I do not come off patriotic. This is all new to me. So, this weekend you all reported that Secretary Clinton was condemned at a Joni Ernst fundraiser for having "Probably never ridden a John Deere," I have! So I am hoping you can report that to Americans for me. But, I am not sure if that experience is relevant as I have never walked to school in a downpour with Wonder Bread bags on my feet. Maybe we could get clarification before you report on that. I wouldn't want a cherished childhood memory of having steered the tractor from my granddady's lap to end up being maligned because my childhood had missed any other important milestones.
I believe that a lot of what Senator Sanders has been saying has been exactly what America needs to hear right now. The word 'socialist' has been bandied about, however, and that has been offered to us as a bad word. I certainly don't want any bad words attributed to me. Can we just stick with something like 'really really worried about taking care of all Americans' or something like that? It sounds a lot better, don't you think?
Of the many issues I am passionate about, the first that I would want to discuss is healthcare. People keep telling us that universal healthcare is a terrible thing. The only terrible things I would like to tell Americans are the horror stories of real people who are suffering because their state has decided to deny people coverage. I want them to know about how 850,000 Floridians have had their medical coverage taken away by their legislatures because they were deemed 'able bodied' even though the only way they can actually be so is by paying $4000/month to cover health costs to enable them to breathe. I am sure that, before Americans go to vote next year, they would want to know the very specific details about their candidates positions on this issue. Wouldn't you think so, as an American?
I am a proud feminist and would want to make women's issues a main focus of my campaign. I am concerned, however, because although I am aware of the rabid opinions those running on the right have espoused about women, I have never heard any in the media report on them. Are those the types of issues the media just doesn't like to cover? Unlike Mike Huckabee, I believe that women are quite capable of multi-tasking, even while on their periods. All of the candidates on the right have said they want to get rid of a woman's right to chose altogether. I would like to really have a discussion about that. Will you be willing to cover it? As yet, I have not heard the media cover any of their extreme ideas about women. It is hard to defend an argument when your audience hasn't even heard it. I hope you will understand this and start reporting on the things they say to their party so the rest of Americans can make an educated choice between my vision and theirs.
Like every other candidate on the left who has ever been interviewed, I believe that we should have laws to restrict gun use by those who have been deemed dangerous. Would you please make a point of specifically telling your audience that I am not interested in getting rid of the Second Amendment? In fact, I would even go a step farther and tell them that if they would stop the discourse about taking away the Constitutional rights of a woman to decide what to do with her own body, I would gladly see to it that they keep their Second Amendment. That seems fair. Then we could knock out two extreme conversations with one sentence and get back to things that the majority of Americans are actually concerned about.
I have been struggling to understand why there is so much coverage on Secretary Clinton in the media and so little on the many candidates on the right? Maybe because there are too many on the right you become overwhelmed and just focus on the left? I hope that my entry to the campaign doesn't create a field so large that it makes you decide to stop covering politics altogether. Information really is supposed to be the service that you give Americans and it would be a shame for you to give up before you even tried.
I lack the grace of President Obama and the experience of Secretary Clinton. I am easily frustrated and get quite defensive when I am dismissed or disrespected. I fear my campaign will end before it has a chance to really begin if you refuse to cover my campaign respectfully. You all are welcome to hours of commentary on what my platform is about. In fact, I would encourage that. Although my life will offer you more than enough truly tabloidesque moments to explore and exploit, I hope that you will keep that to a minimum. I think Americans would like to be able to discern my trustworthiness and intentions with little thought to whether or not I was a jackass as a teenager or took five years to get my two year college degree. My opinions are vastly different from those you have been offering to your audiences so I hope that will be enough to warrant your time and attention.
I'll see you this weekend!
Kiss kiss,
Mean Progressive
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