And Mike Matthews just fainted with dreams of being the First First Gentleman. But no, not our favorite local wingnut Christine O’Donnell.
Ed O’Donnell. Who? Precisely.
WDEL is currently running a story about a little known perennial candidate named Ed O’Donnell, who just “announced” that he is running for the Patriot Party’s (what?) nomination for President in 2012. Why the early start?
O’Donnell says one reason he’s starting his Presidential run now is that he wants to be ready in case the US government collapses like the Roman and British Empires and the former Soviet Union.
But, if the country collapses, will we have an election to get ready for in 2012? Just a minor detail I think Mr. O’Donnell overlooks. I digress. I have no idea who O’Donnell is. I have no idea what the Patriot Party is, and that is not unusual since there are hundreds of small crazy fringe third parties. So I googled O’Donnell. I found information on Rosie O’Donnell, which was quite unfortunate, but not much on an alleged presidential candidate named Ed O’Donnell, which I found quite odd, since, after all, WDEL has O’Donnell’s announcement as a top news story.
But then I found this interview with the Dartmouth University Press in 2004, when the prestigious candidate O’Donnell ran for the fifth time. You must read it in its entirety, because it is comedy gold. Perhaps that is where WDEL is going with its story, for I must confess I have only read the story and not listened to it on the radio.
Go below the fold for some excerpts. After reading it, I am convinced Ed O’Donnell is Liz Allen:
Ed O’Donnell is running for president. Of the United States. While he has yet to garner the attention of say, a Carol Moseley-Braun or Gary Bauer, O’Donnell has campaign experience (he is currently embarked on his sixth run) and has an expansive platform which includes the creation of a four-day work week, the elimination of guns, and a foreign policy which would guide US resources towards third-world development, debt relief and education. An independent, he is running in the primary as a Democrat. He advocates worldwide term limits for elected officials as well as the removal of Pope John Paul II and Rev. Billy Graham from the public sphere. The O’Donnell campaign seems to rest on two themes: helping the downtrodden and dismantling the corrupt political system.
JK: What do you think is the resistance to Religious and Mental Health education in public schools?
EOD: Since ’52…the American political system from top to bottom-both parties-has been dominated by insincere, vicious personalities who sometimes enjoy hurting people…I believe the entire American political system has to be started over again, like we did in 1776. To me, both political parties are like the British in 1776. They must leave, en masse, immediately.
JK: So what would you do to start that process?
EOD: Well, if I were President of the United States, I would call a constitutional convention in Williamsburg, Virginia; it’s a very inspiring place. One hundred private citizens, two from each state-I’m not sure how we’d choose them but we have to make sure that they are average citizens-that would have had nothing to do with the political parties. Nothing. We have to start fresh, and I would want a good number of those 100 to be milk men and garbage men and maids and waitresses. We don’t want it to be an academic elitist group.
JK: Now you want to do this in Williamsburg, in the historic town? Because I’ve been there and the people are dressed up. Would you want the delegates to wear traditional costumes?
EOD: Now, that’s something to think about. I don’t know yet.
…
EOD: … Let me make my second point, and I’m on record as saying this: Everyone in the media has to go, and I’m on record as saying that the greatest tyrants in society today are Brokaw, Jennings, Rather, Couric, and Russert.
JK: What about O’Reilly?
EOD: Well, one [Dartmouth] professor told me that at lunch the other day. I’ve never seen him but I hear he’s really vicious.
JK: Very.
EOD: So, I’m on record as saying 100% new people in the media, positive thinkers who don’t get up in the morning to destroy people. So I am the number one enemy of the national media. They’re not going to give me press. There’s only one way I’m going to get it and that’s New Hampshire.
JK: Now how are you going to enforce getting rid of, say, Peter Jennings? Because he doesn’t work for the government.
EOD: We have the public on our side, and I am a tremendous motivator. If you ever hear me speak you’ll see; I have a gift of inspiring. I am certain that I can galvanize and mobilize the already existing opposition to the news media worldwide into a financial boycott if they don’t go voluntarily. Keep in mind, whether it’s elected officials or the media, change is the one constant.
JK: Are you in favor of a state run media?
EOD: No, here’s how I would do it; here’s the way I would do it…(Rustling)
JK: Do you want a piece of paper?
EOD: Thanks (begins drawing a diagram), I would have this mix-we’d have whatever television stations that wanted to be there-plus this certain mix: you’d have one government TV station so that we could get out our message unfiltered….
JK: But what about CSPAN? That’s a channel that I really enjoy and it is pretty unfiltered. Have you seen it?
EOD: Yeah and, see I ran for two weeks last time, did you know that? Against Vice President Gore.
JK: Oh yeah? Actually I think I did know that.
EOD: For two weeks with little money and CNN put me on and said “O’Donnell is the only one who says we should have absolute gun control like England, Holland, Australia, and Japan where no one owns a gun,” and then CSPAN-the so-called “minor candidates” -we had a debate and CSPAN put it on nationwide.
JK: Now that’s impressive.
EOD: Yeah, and I say that all of those stations can stay. But we need one government station; then you would have to have other major commercial stations to be able to challenge the government station. I don’t want some kind of a dictatorship. And then I want one-I want religious points of view to be able to have their stations. I would like to see one Christian station-and a Christian is someone who loves other people, and these hate-filled evangelists whom news media portray as Christians are not Christians.
JK: What about people who are going to say “I want my MTV,” can they have their MTV?
EOD: MTV is fine. MTV covered our debate last time and did a pretty good job. Ok, so one Christian station, one Jewish, one Muslim, one-that’s important, we don’t have that now. Then at least two stations like NBC and CBS but they’d have to be brand new. New stations, new people. Now, having said that, I think that there’s going to be about 2000 news people and personalities who are involved now who can stay. I mean, I know some of them. I use Kim Quillan as an example. Last I knew she was at the New Orleans Times Picayune, she was editor of Delaware State News. I don’t know anything about her religious beliefs, her personal life, anything about her and I got in a lot of fights with her when she was doing the state news, so she’s not in camp. Fifty percent of the time she did what I wanted, 50% of the time she didn’t. And we even got into a little fight; I invited her to this beautiful lunch at this former DuPont estate when some stock market guy was giving a speech because she was running the Delaware Business Review at the time. And we had this beautiful lunch and I tried to say “here have that piece of cake, have that piece of cake,” and she got mad at me. So, in no way is Kim Quillen in camp, right? And…
JK: And also, she doesn’t like cake.
EOD: Well, maybe just that cake.
JK: OK.
EOD: She was totally fair. She doesn’t hate people and she treats people fairly.
…
JK: You also advocated for 4-day work week.
EOD: Yes, now I want to make this clear because this is at the center of my platform. England, Holland, Japan, Australia: no one has a gun, twenty to thirty gun murders last year. We had 20,000 reported-I think its more, I don’t trust government statistics-we had 30,000 woundings-I think its more, I don’t trust government statistics.
JK: Well who does anymore?
EOD: So I say absolute gun control, and I also say that second amendment referred to the militia. They meant the militia had the right to bear arms.
JK: So you think that the military should still be able to carry weapons?
EOD: Well I don’t know about that, but private citizens should not and the police-there’s got to be restrictions there like in Great Britain. The police-there’s a gun in their car….
JK: Oh, I’ve seen that. They hit people with a stick instead.
EOD: Well that’s a problem too.
JK: Yes. But it’s better than shooting.
EOD: Yeah, but, well we can’t have that either.
JK: So no stick?
EOD: No, I have a problem. Now I’m also asking if I were to speak before the national academy of sciences, I’ve got some requests for them. One, with all our scientific brilliance can we devise…. Well first we’re going to have a knife turn-in day as well as a gun turn-in day. I want every knife that can do harm to a human being turned in.
JK: Now what about a cooking knife?
EOD: Well that’s the question: Can our scientists design a kitchen utensil which will not do the damage that these knives that people stab…
JK: So something that could cut food, but not a person. That’s something that I’m interested in because I’ve had some kitchen accidents.
EOD: But a gun turn-day and a knife turn-in day and even if we get twenty to thirty percent of these out of circulation, that would help.
[…]
EOD: …[With respect to reforming corporations,] [e]ach employee in every company is on a decision-making body, so that helps run the company and we raise the salary to $30-40,000 a year and we cut down on the CEO salaries. I believe I can convince these CEO’s with this army of American people on my side to cut their salaries. And if I’m president I take $25,000 a year like George Washington took. I give the remaining…
JK: $375,000
EOD: …to scholarships for ghetto kids in Washington.
JK: Right now we’re only working five days a week in America but your plan would cut down, potentially, the total amount of work by 20%. Do you think this might lead to a drop in output that could force us to start making smaller stuff?
EOD: It would increase output because it is the unhealthy worker that makes all of the mistakes. That’s where the incompetence is coming from. Workers who are addicted and don’t feel good physically and mentally.
JK: Now if you were elected President, would you take three-day weekends?
EOD: No, because I, in that job with that kind of fitness facility that I would have in the White House and the meals and nutrition and excitement of the job-I can do it. Plus I’m not married now, I’ve never been. [ed. note: shocking] I might be if I win, we’ll see, but I’d have it structured so that no, I wouldn’t need the days off….Now, have you ever noticed how many elected officials and their staffs are obese and grotesque looking….
JK: Yes, it’s disgusting.
EOD: …And smoke and drink and-you can’t do it.
JK: Talk about running for office. You don’t think they could even run down the block.
EOD: But you have 54 wars going on right now, and the media is covering that up.
JK: Really?
EOD: You think that a person who is out of shape physically should be entrusted with dealing with that? And the first thing you ought to look at is the physical health of the candidate. I put nothing unhealthy in my body. No medicine, no caffeine. I work out on the Dartmouth football field. I know that I am tougher than any of these other candidates out there.
JK: Now you mentioned no medicine. Tell me why.
EOD: Because it has negative side-effects and after-effects.
JK: Do you think that if we cut down on the use of medicine in America it would be a good way to cut costs of Medicare?
EOD: Yes.
JK: That’s interesting. Very interesting. You’ve run five times before, what are you going to do to win this time?
EOD: There’s two ways it can happen. One: a lot of radio ads, but the question is money. Two: does somebody in the national press pump me? So those are the only ways I can do it.
JK: But you’re against the press….
EOD: I’m their number one enemy and they know it.
JK: So it’s going to be difficult.
EOD: The national press hates me because I want them removed and essentially put in a Nuremberg-like trial and have everybody-see in Great Britain….
JK: But who will cover this trial if it’s the press on trial?
EOD: The new media. The positive thinkers, like Kim Quillan.
[…]
JK: Let’s do some more personal questions. What is your favorite book?
EOD: The Bible.
JK: Your favorite film?
EOD: Parenthood. Remember that movie?
JK: It was good. Steve Martin.
EOD: That was the last movie I saw. I don’t go to movies.
JK: That was the last movie you saw? That came out in ’89! Wow.
EOD: That movie, halfway through every one of those cases was hopeless. And how did they resolve them? They did it like a Dickens novel-people helping people with problems.
JK: And that is your message.
EOD: To help the people at the bottom: the prisoner, the mental patient, the homeless, the people who have made mistakes. And none of the people at the top of American society today are dealing with the people at the bottom and they are becoming more and more intolerant and critical of them.
JK: Your favorite political figure?
EOD: Jefferson or Lincoln.
JK: Favorite food?
EOD: Fruit juice.
JK: What kind?
EOD: I like all kinds; I drink six or seven fruit juices every morning.
JK: Do you like smoothies?
EOD: No, just juice. That’s where I get my energy.