“Okay, this guy, Shuggy what’s-his-face, he is fairly ambitious but doesn’t know jackshit about politics. Same goes for everything else.”

“That’s not necessarily bad. All he’s got to do is promise he’s going to cut taxes. Also, his sweeping ignorance can be used to market him as the middle-of-the-road type who’d reach across the aisle.”

“What aisle, Frank? We’re a small town, there’s no such thing as aisle here. No aisles. Most people in these parts don’t know the political meaning of the word. Nine out of ten wouldn’t know how to spell aisle.”

“Does not matter, Bill. It sounds just right and they hear it on TV all the time. Truth be told, I am more worried about his lack of education. Every time he writes himself a note he uses capital letters. And he keeps blurting out four-letter words with alarming frequency.”

“Yeah, Frank, that’s kind of worrisome. We have to keep his public speaking to minimum and practice with him the day before. We’ve also got to invest in a teleprompter.”

“Still, I’d feel better if we could turn down debates and let him give only one TV interview, questions submitted several days in advance.”

“Sounds like a plan. We can be sure of one thing, this guy’s going to be obedient like a puppy dog. Might’ve just found the ideal candidate for us.”

“I believe we have, Bill. By the way what’s Shuggy’s real name?”

“For the life of me, I don’t remember. Obviously not Shuggy. Okay, quick mental note: Find out Shaggy’s first name. Not that we’re ever going to use it, except on official papers. Everybody in town calls him Shuggy.”

We told the fledgling candidate to keep it simple, pledge to lower property taxes, eliminate vandalism and petty theft, etc. Still the campaign proved rockier than expected. The biggest problem was that Shuggy couldn’t memorize his speeches and had a hard time reading the prompter.

The promises were well received but the rest of the show remained crude. Shuggy would use curse words whenever he didn’t remember what he was supposed to say, which was always, and threw out witticisms such as “a rollin’ brick don’t make no friends.” He’d repeat the phrase so often that it was gradually becoming the campaign’s unofficial slogan. Worse yet, other towns and villages in our county soon took to calling us “the place with rolling bricks and no friends.”

We had to make several corrections, especially to his favorite colloquial phrases, the worst of which was to end his statements with “I tells ya.” I sat down with him and explained that “tells” is third person singular so it can’t be used with “I.” He asked me, “So who’s that third person we’re talkin’ about?”

Shuggy hit bottom when the local TV interviewed him and he gave the following brusque answer to a softball question on education: “I can’t ponder that issue right now after so much strenuous work and heavy drinkin’ today.” In the same interview later, it got catastrophic when family values came up. “As you all well know I been with the same broad for nearly twenty years. A happily married man, and as such I gotta rely on hookers for sex.”

It must have been his folksy style and the promised tax cuts that got him elected by a sizable margin.

After his inaugural address, which was probably his worst delivery but who could tell by then, we had a celebration party for him. First he got completely wasted on hooch and beer, then expressed love for everybody and announced he’d remember who his friends were.

On day one, he gave all building and road-repair contracts to his friends. On day two, he raised our property taxes.

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