November 3, 2010; Source: The Onion | It was quite a bloody election. Strange things happened in the lead up to the 2010 elections on Tuesday. Since no one cares about party platforms or policy details, the election was conducted almost entirely through television ads and snippets from interviews.
We learned that a senatorial candidate in Delaware briefly toyed with Wicca, a senatorial candidate in Kentucky may have worshiped an unknown deity named Aqua Buddha, a Congressional candidate from Florida called his opponent “Taliban Dan,” a former president did or didn’t ask a Democratic senatorial candidate who agreed or didn’t agree or agreed and disagreed simultaneously to drop out of the race and throw his support to an Independent, Tea Party activists darkly hinted that the potential defeat of their candidate for senator from Nevada would be unacceptable—those are just some of the happier moments of the campaign.
We didn’t realize that behind the scenes, November 3 turned out to be the nation’s deadliest midterm election in history. Apparently, Democratic majority leader Harry Reid pummeled minority leader Mitch McConnell with a gavel and Congressman Barney Frank smashed a bureaucrat against a marble column. Fortunately, Congressman Peter DeFazio (D-OR) survived the Congressional melee Tuesday evening and pledged to rebuild the U.S. government.
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DeFazio’s memories of the bloodshed are fuzzy, including a vague memory of Charlie Rangel (D-NY) trying to strangle Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), but obviously November 3 was so upsetting that it caused some sort of temporary or selective amnesia. Sounding a little like Will Smith, he spoke from a makeshift podium amidst the detritus of the Lincoln Memorial to say, “If anybody can hear me, my name is Peter DeFazio, and I’m a member of the U.S. Congress. I—I’m not sure exactly what happened here, but I want to assure the American people that we, or rather I, will get to all of your concerns as soon as humanly possible.”
On a tape automated to play over and over, he recorded this message: “This is Peter DeFazio of Oregon’s 4th Congressional District. If there are any elected officials out there who can hear this, know that you are not alone. Come to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. as soon as you can. It’s time to start again.” Now one of DeFazio’s top priorities is to find a fertile female politician with whom to repopulate Congress.
Having defeated a rabid Tea Partier himself, DeFazio may be looking not for partisans to engage in electioneering, but nonprofits willing to do the issue advocacy needed to reawaken and rebuild Congress. How many brave nonprofits are there willing to answer DeFazio’s plaintive requests for help and companionship?—Rick Cohen
