Now that Paul Manafort is wearing an ankle bracelet (two of them actually, who ever heard of that!) I see an opening in the job market. I see an opportunity to make some big rubles as a campaign adviser in Russia. At the top of the ticket is Vladimir Putin, running for re-election as President of the Russian Federation. Yes, I know there is no chance he could lose, but he’s got to keep up appearances. And election advisers are part of appearances. My first suggestion for good old Vlad? He needs a motto. May I offer:
You’re darn tootin’
You should vote for Putin
Or he’ll be shootin’
You…
What do you think? Pretty catchy, huh? And then there are the members of the Duma. The Duma is Russia’s version of Congress, and every bit as honorable. There are a lot of members of the Duma, so a good chance to sell the same motto to multiple guys. Try this one on for size:
You can presume
If you don’t put me in the Duma
You get bellyache
Worse than Revenge of Montezuma
(Much worse…)
That’s actually more like a jingle. We can put that to music and rap it. But we need a second verse. Something like:
Put me in the Duma
Helping Big Bro’ Vlad
Steal Mother Russia’s money
‘Cause we so bad
Oh crap! Now I see the next election for Duma is three years off, and that fricking tune is in my head. It’s bouncing around in there like a crazy-making Bee Gees song. Hold on, I’m taking a moment off to listen to some Abba; that should do it.
Okay, I’m back. Whew, thank god for Abba. Now where was I? Yes, mottos and jingles; they are good for drumming up excitement. They boost voter enthusiasm and turnout. And there are other measures that can be used in enclaves of your supporters. You can have a polling station on every corner. You could hand out an absentee ballot with every bottle of vodka sold. Even better, hand out the vodka for free. Finally, there is the old fashioned bribe. You control the government; you can just print a few more rubles.
Turning out the your-kind-of-people to vote is an okay, but frankly kind of old school way of winning an election. These days, instead of getting your kind of people to turn out and vote, you get the not-your-kind-of-people to not turn out and not vote. I emailed a couple such suggestions over to Russia as part of my pitch to get hired on. You know, standard stuff like having one polling station with five voting booths in a city of two million of the not-your-kind-of-people. Then there’s the making sure you hold the election on a day when all the undesirables have to work, being sure to shut down all early voting. You can purge the voter registration list, requiring anyone not on it to register anew, which is a very easy process and will take only two or three hours. And last, but certainly not least, there is the old trick of requiring all voters to produce a driver’s license, birth certificate, full police report, lab test results for all known venereal diseases, and current passport. Of course in Russia that may not work. They have to produce all that stuff just to cross the street over there. So scratch that idea I guess. Yessir, I sent them all those great ideas. Unfortunately, they came back at me and said they already do all those things, ever since they started watching American television. Plus, of course, they kill people. So there’s that.
I didn’t get the job. Bummer.
But I guess Vladimir really doesn’t need my help to get elected. Did you know there are actually quite a few different political parties in Russia? There are ten or eleven opposition parties. If none of them win over 50% of the vote, they go to run-off elections. But Russian elections never go to run-off, at least not those involving Mr. Putin. How can one man get over 50% of the vote when there are so many opposition parties? Allow me to hypotheticalize:
Phone rings in the household of Aleksey Zhuravlyov. “Da, this is Aleksey speaking. Da, uv course I am Chairman of Rodina Party. Who does not know dat? Who is calling please?”
Unintelligible voice from the other end. Aleksey’s wife cannot make it out.
“But how can I do dat? Ve are opposition party. Already our candidate has been chosen. Vat vill I tell members?”
Unintelligible voice from the other end. Aleksey’s wife cannot make it out.
“Vat? Did I hear correctly? You vould do dat?” Mr. Zhuravlyov turns green. He starts to sweat. “Da, uv course we are loyal opposition, you know dat. How can ve vork dis out?”
Unintelligible voice from the other end. Aleksey’s wife cannot make it out.
“Nyet, nyet, nyet! Dat vill not be necessary! Da, uv course, uv course! Tomorrow we will announce! Ve vill support Mr. Putin for president. Da, uv course.”
The line goes dead. Mr. Zhuravlyov stares at the receiver, forgetting to hang it up.
“Vat is dis?” his wife asks, trembling. “Vat has happened? Now you vill support Putin?”
“Da, ve vill support Putin, ve vill support Putin. But don’t vorry lyubov moya, it be fine. After election, ve go on vacation. Yes we go on very, very long vacation, to someplace very, very far away.”
Was the same phone call received by the chairmen of other political parties? We can only imagine what goes on in the Twilight Zone. What we do know is that Rodina, Civic Platform, and A Just Russia, all significant political parties over there, now support Mr. Putin for president. Funny how that works. So Putin will be re-elected. Don’t get down about it. It’s not the end of the world, I hope. Forget about Russian politics and world affairs. Look for something to cheer you up. Hey, I have a suggestion. I will even give you a link to it, right here. I hereby guarantee, it’ll make you smile.