GK: It's time once again for Famous Celebrities (THEME), brought to you by HalTon, makers of BroTek. Tuesday is election day all across America as Americans go to the polls to....
TR (KOPPEL): ....to exercise their prerogative, as some would have it, to decide who, if anyone, will be the next President of these United, or at the very least, associated, States.
GK: Thank you, Ted Koppel. It's election day and I'm just wondering if there's anything more to add to what we know already. Mr. President? Anything more you'd like to say.
TR (CLINTON): Well, yes, there is. I don't think that many people are aware of our program to build three million new bird feeders in the next two years, and we're also proposing a plan of cold weather relief for Minnesotans.
GK: I see.
TR (CLINTON): We feel your misery.
GK: What are you going to do about cold weather?
TR (CLINTON): Well, we're going to encourage people to paint their houses bright colors so it's more cheerful, and we're going to teach whistling.
GK: I see.
TR (CLINTON): Did you know that almost a third of our children under the age of 12 are unable to whistle?
GK: No, I didn't. Senator Dole? Your hand is raised.
TR (DOLE) Former Senator Dole.
GK: Sorry. I keep forgetting.
TR (DOLE) Let me say, Bob Dole has never heard such a load of horse hockey in his life as what he's heard this year. Bob Dole can't believe he's losin' to this guy! It's like being suffocated by fabric softener.
GK: So you're opposed to cold weather relief, Mr. Dole?
TR (DOLE): I say, if you can't take the cold, get out of the kitchen.
GK: Thank you --- Mr. Perot, any comment here?
TR (PEROT): It's pretty darn obvious that nobody up there in Washington has the sense that God gave an ashtray. I mean, here's Mexico with more heat than they know what to do with, and here's Minnesota colder than a well-digger's keester. It's as simple as that.
GK: Thank you Mr. Perot. President Bush, down in Houston, I see you have your hand up.
TR (BUSH): Well, it's that election thing again. Remember it well. You're going along great, doing your job, as you see it, and sometimes you don't see it at all ---- I mean, White House bartenders, they make a mean Martini. You wake up at a state dinner and you don't know who that is next to you and you're shaking hands with Girl Scouts and some obese person in a blue dress gets up and sings "God Bless America" or whatever it is and everybody expects you to get all smiley and teary-eyed and meanwhile the press has got you tied to a stake and sitting on an anthill with your shorts off and I guess what I'm wondering is: who would you wish that on in the sense of wanting to elect them anyway? I just ask you.
GK: Okay. Let's turn that question over to you, President Clinton.
TR (CLINTON): Well, I have tremendous respect for former President Bush and he's right, every President does make a certain personal sacrifice, but when you consider the good you can do ---- I mean, last year, we put more than forty thousand new paper towel dispensers in America's airport terminals ---- we've increased by forty percent the number of Americans who receive neck rubs every week ---
GK: Okay. Let's get a comment from Mr. Dole.
TR (DOLE): Let me tell you, being President couldn't possibly be any worse than what Bob Dole has had to go through already. Bob Dole had to quit the Senate, Bob Dole had to embrace supply-side economics and fly around in a plane with Jack Kemp sitting and yammering non-stop and then Bob Dole goes to give a speech and he falls off the damn platform. Bob Dole has eaten corn dogs until they're coming out his ears, and Bob Dole has been in more two-bit motel rooms than the Gideon Bible. And now Bob Dole has to ride up and down the state of California in a bus, grinning like an idiot at crowds of people with weird hair. You elect me President, I'll never complain again in my life, I promise. Never complain. Never complain.
GK: Okay. Thank you. Mr. Perot?
TR (PEROT): Anybody with a brain the size of a sand flea can figure out that when you're up to your eyeballs in alligators, nobody's worried about drainin' the swamp! Think about it.
GK: Very good. (THEME) That's all the time we have for Famous Celebrities, brought to you by MarCom, makers of DiTran.
©1996 BY GARRISON KEILLOR, RICH PROCTER AND JOHN KNOERLE