This is one of two of my Fiction Writing class stories that I will post. It’s a fictional account of a campaign… IN THE FUTURE. This was supposed to be a modular story format, and I’m lazy. This is the result of those two facts. Though, to be honest, the veins of American political life that I accidentally hit in this story are proving to be the bulging, needle-ready veins of prominence in the year of our lord 2017, so I find myself thinking about this story a lot. And yes, Drew MaRgary (because that was funny to me, for some reason; I dunno, I was high for most of Fall 2012).
Fraternity president attempts jump to higher office
May, 14th 2016
By Clyde Trewski, Boulder Daily Camera Staff Writer
In somewhat more offbeat election news, Jack Appel, the President of the Chi Psi fraternity, has received enough signatures to qualify for June’s Democratic Party primary. Appel, who has attended the University of Colorado for the past five years, was sanguine when contacted about the news. “Really? That worked? Heh, Fred and Hunter will be thrilled.”
Self-described “Campaign Manager” Fred Mankiewicz, a recent graduate of American University in Washington D.C. has no illusions about their chances, however. “We’re essentially running to the left of a Boulder congressman, you know, so our base is going to be bit smaller. Uh, perhaps.”
Self-described “Media Consultant” Hunter Crouse is far less charitable with his comments. “This is a joke, man. We are just trying to make a joke, here, and nobody sees it. If what we’re trying to say about America is that all you need to win is an affable personality and an inoffensive appearance—and then you actually manage to get enough signatures on that basis? It’s like no one is even listening.”
Joke or not, Appel will be on the ballot later this year. The primary election will be held on June 16th.
________________________________________________________________________
Socialist candidate forces runoff in Colorado congressional election
November 9th, 2016
By Drew Margary, New York Times Staff Writer
In a series of events that no one—from the best-paid consultant to the most deliriously delusional student—anticipated, Jack Appel, the college-aged Socialist candidate for Colorado’s 2nd Congressional District, has managed to break the vote threshold necessary to force a runoff against incumbent Democratic Representative Jason Reza.
Gene Sinclair, the man largely viewed as the brains behind Appel’s brand of populist socialism, seems pleasantly surprised by the whole ordeal. “When Fred brought me in—you know, when Jack [Appel] and Hunter [Crouse, the campaign’s media consultant] reached out to me, asking if I could help them come up with some palatable socialist policy for some kind of platform—I actually thought they were kidding. And now, here we are, one more special election from, literally, electing a socialist. And not like Bernie Sanders, either, that [ed. redacted for language]. No, Jack doesn’t have an ‘I’ next to his name to hide behind. And now we might win. This is a crazy town, huh?”…
________________________________________________________________________
(excerpted from Journal of International Socialism #153, Winter 2017, “Colorado: 2016 and Beyond”)
Why did we do it? What made us think that this was OK? I don’t know.
Part of me really wanted to believe that it was finally time—that we had made it as a nation. That we would be able to put aside our collective greed and do some collective good. I was, as they say, a true believer.
Also, I think we all had a wicked sense of humor. That kind of feedback loop was bad for us.
–Eugene “Gene” Sinclair, Policy Advisor to fmr. SPUSA congressional candidate Jack Appel
________________________________________________________________________
Appel to run as Socialist
July 5th, 2016
By Clyde Trewski, Boulder Daily Camera Staff Writer
Earlier this summer, we covered the Democratic Party primary specifically with an eye toward the strangest candidate on the ballot: Jack Appel. Appel, as you may recall, was trounced in the primary, but apparently his campaign isn’t quite over. FEC filings with the Boulder County Clerk and Recorder have shown that Appel has submitted the proper paperwork to be included on November’s ballot as a candidate for the Socialist Party of the USA (SPUSA).
The campaign could not be reached for comment.
________________________________________________________________________
(excerpted from Red Dawn: How Three Ivory Tower Liberals Almost Sent a Socialist from Colorado to Washington, originally published in the March 2017 issue of GQ)
…
GQ: When did you realize that you guys actually had a chance, here?
Mankiewicz: Well, shortly after we decided to get the signatures to get him on the ballot. See, when I was looking at the precincts in and around Boulder proper, I noticed that there were a lot of unregistered kids—you know, kids from California and Texas and whatnot—and we sorta figured that, hell, if we just register 50% of these kids in 50% of these precincts, get them to organize and get their friends registered, we can mount a grassroots campaign on the strength of the college, alone.
Crouse: Yeah, and it was easy, you know? All the kids from out of town, they’re here on daddy’s dime; they have no concept of the value of a dollar; they love reefer, hate war, and they all half-read Marx. They’re perfect socialists.
Mankiewicz: Yeah, and that’s where Gene came in.
GQ: Gene Sinclair, right? The campaign’s policy wonk?
Crouse: Yeah. See, my tongue may have been in my cheek on that last reply, but Gene really knew how to boil down some of the headier, “cool-look-at-me-I-read-all-of-Das-Kapital” arguments and make them simple enough for a student to understand and support.
Mankiewicz: Without him, I think that it’s unlikely that we even make a dent. I mean, how many times has a campaign staked its future on being crazy-far-left? Rather, how many times has anyone in America won based on ANYTHING Marx said?
GQ: How did you two know Gene?
Crouse: During college, Gene went to Georgetown. He was this rich little prick from Greenwood Village, a real silver spoon type. We kinda knew him from before, in High School debate, and when Fred and me went off to AU, we were aware that he went to Georgetown. But then, about midway through college, we were all back home for winter break, and me and Fred, we were stumbling through this back alley in Denver…
Mankiewicz: …Yeah, and we come across this real wookie-looking guy. He’s crouched, trying to light a spliff, and he hears us come up behind him. He jumps up real quick and turns around and after like, a good five-second, silent, super-intense stare he’s like, “did you guys debate PF for East High School a couple years back?”
Crouse: We started to chill with him a lot back in DC after that. He had morphed from this super-preppy douchebag in to this hairy, smelly, nerdy communist. You know the type: the kind of kid that feels so guilty about his privilege growing up that he finds a way to flagellate himself with harmless words for the rest of his life. Becomes a communist the first time he reads Marx, a radical feminist the first time he reads Dworkin; the kid was just always looking for some far-left ideology to pin himself against. And he never knew a hardship in his whole life. His parents floated him the entire time he was trying to organize an “Occupy Georgetown.”
Mankiewicz: Total cliché. But we liked him. And we knew that he knew a lot about potential or theoretical Socialist policies. So, when we learned that he was in town “getting a doctorate at Boulder,” we decided to ask him if he wanted to jump on the campaign. It was hard to get Jack on board with the socialism, though. At least at first.
Crouse: Goddamn, was it ever.
GQ: What were his reservations?
Crouse: Well, naturally, he was just an average, moderate, apathetic Texan kid. He could only run in Colorado because he had spent enough time and money in Boulder not passing college to establish residency. He definitely wasn’t on board with socialism, like, as a philosophy before this.
Mankiewicz: Yeah, honestly, that was never the point.
Crouse: I know, I know, but we got carried away, I guess.
…
________________________________________________________________________
Appel gaining momentum in run for Congress
August 15th, 2015
By Clyde Trewski, Boulder Daily Camera Staff Writer
In election news, the out-of-nowhere Socialist Party of the USA candidate, Jack Appel, has been gaining momentum in the month of August. Since announcing in July that he would be accepting the Socialist Party’s nomination for the 2nd congressional district race, Appel has been campaigning and fundraising tirelessly. This has paid dividends, as the most recent Public Policy Polling poll numbers show Appel with a 9% share, with a margin of error of 3 percentage points.
Policy advisor Gene Sinclair, though optimistic and pleased with the current numbers, believes that a greater dent can be made. “I think when we started running, we didn’t really have much of an idea of just how much people want a true leftist alternative. For too long, we’ve been dealing with the kindly, paternalistic whispers of ‘just wait’ or ‘trust us’ coming from the Democratic party. I think that this is just an example of this generation saying, no more. We’re gonna decide on this, you know? We don’t like drug laws, and we don’t like the tax code, and why are we spending so much on tanks? This election, from what we’ve seen so far, it seems to be a sea change in our generation. Socialism isn’t a dirty word anymore.”
Despite Appel’s tireless campaigning, experts are skeptical that the Socialist candidate can get the media exposure necessary to compete with Rep. Reza (D). The Appel campaign will be having a rally on Norlin Quad this Saturday.
________________________________________________________________________
…
GQ: Okay, I have to ask about “the Wheel.”
Crouse: What do you want to know?
GQ: Well, first off, why?
Crouse: We were getting killed in media exposure.
Mankiewicz: I really hate admitting it, but it was… a bit of a publicity stunt, really.
GQ: But why “the Wheel?”
Mankiewicz: Well, if you remember, the campaign started off as a joke, right? So, if we’re doing this big meta-humor thing about the absurdity of American politics, it fits, right? Please tell me it fits.
GQ: It did. I mean it certainly played with the voters. How did you come up with it?
Crouse: See that’s funny. I remember, back in 2012, me, and Fred, and Gene, we were all sitting around watching that third Presidential debate—remember? The one where Romney pretty much ceded the entire concept of foreign policy to Obama.
Mankiewicz: Yeah, like, that was just a super-craven, mad-disingenuous thing to do. He just co-opted a bunch of positions he didn’t agree with to look more moderate.
Crouse: So, and, I think it was Gene who said it, but someone was just like, “dude, you don’t even have your own viewpoints. You may as well have just done your platform with a roulette wheel.” That thought, of course, after some witty, college-aged-stoned banter, came to the form that you guys all saw: the Wheel of Positions.
GQ: Can you describe the Wheel for anyone that didn’t catch this?
Crouse: Well, the basic idea was this: politics is a joke. Positions are crap. No one cares. So, we were like, “what if you literally made your platform by spinning a wheel, like Wheel of Fortune?” So, we built a wheel and divided it up in to a bunch of hot-button issues. And we decided that whatever slice it landed on, Jack would just be stupid-hardcore-conservative on that one.
GQ: And he agreed to this?
Mankiewicz: Reluctantly, admittedly.
Crouse: So, we set up a website, did some hyping, set up a live feed, and made an event out of it—it’s how we launched our campaign. And if you donated two dollars, then you could view the livestream.
Mankiewicz: Yeah, and see which ridiculous position it’d land on.
GQ: And of course it landed on…
Crouse: Abortion, yeah. That really made the entire campaign a lot funnier. ‘Cause, you know, Fred would just do the whole bit, write a hard-left stump speech, and then at the very end add one line about “oh, the unborn child’s life is a sacred compact between God and the mother…” yadda yadda yadda. The first time we made Jack deliver it in public, at this rally in Loveland, it got the funniest reaction.
…
________________________________________________________________________
On strength of bizarre campaign, Socialist candidate Appel looks to make history in CD-2
October 29th, 2016
By Lynn Bartels, Denver Post Staff Writer
…At the beginning of the summer, if you had asked Sinclair about his candidate’s chances in November, he would have laughed in your face. Now, in late-October, Appel has officially broken 38% in most major polls of the district—putting him in striking distance of Rep. Jason Reza (D). Reza has been polling at 45% since September 17th. While Reza’s low-point stability in the polls is worrisome in itself, Appel’s Socialist candidacy may very well break the 35% threshold needed to force a runoff election.
Sinclair attributes most of this surge to their voter registration efforts, but he does not rule out the possibility that this is representative of a sea change in American politics. “Socialism used to be a dirty word. Hell, four years ago it was almost dirty enough to be used to toss a Democrat out of the White House—and he was no Socialist. But now? The kids don’t seem to care. They even seem a bit enthused about redistribution.”
Though Sinclair may attribute the success of their campaign to its policy merits, at the center of this phenomenon is a bizarre campaign strategy. The campaign, which is being run by first time campaign manager Fred Mankiewicz, has a definite theatrical flair to it.
Besides the outlandish and ethically questionable “Wheel of Positions” campaign launch, Appel’s campaign has propelled itself forward as a tongue-in-cheek parody of campaigns. Appel’s most recent rally was entitled “Happy Proletariat Man Kisses Your Infants in a Totally Non-Sexual Way in Order to Demonstrate Human-ness.” An earlier registration drive was advertised by the campaign’s Facebook and Twitter accounts with the billing of “Stop Being a Lazy Jackass and Rise Up Against the Bourgeosie You Lazy Jackass.”
Besides oddly-named events, the campaign has made liberal use of YouTube. The recurring segment, “Jack Yells About Things That Irk Him,” has been an unexpected viral hit: total views on the videos number in the several millions. The videos, none of which are more than two minutes long, simply feature Appel yelling, sometimes incoherently, about anything that annoys him. The videos are absurd and clearly parodic, but somehow that hasn’t seemed to damage Appel’s favorability.
Whether the strange and questionably salty campaign strategy will pay off remains to be seen, but the candidate’s poll numbers have officially put him in play in District 2…
________________________________________________________________________
…
GQ: The day after the general election—when you were notified that you had gotten the amount necessary to force the runoff, how did you react?
Mankiewicz: Everyone else was ecstatic, and I seemed to be the only one who knew that it was over. I mean, in a one-on-one with a major party, can you win?
…
________________________________________________________________________
Appel’s candidacy ends in blame, internal strife
December 17th, 2016
By Drew Margary, New York Times Staff Writer
As the dust settles in Colorado and the numbers come in, it is becoming clear that the inexplicable phenomenon of Jack Appel’s campaign for Congress will not achieve victory. Incumbent Democrat Jason Reza trounced his Socialist challenger after the second round of voting conducted last Tuesday.
…
Appel’s campaign officials have now descended in to blame-game assessments of eachothers’ performances. Although no public statements have come from the campaign or candidate themselves, the major players have taken to the internet to trade slings.
…
Almost universal in their critiques, however, was their candidate…
________________________________________________________________________
…
GQ: After the runoff, how did things go with Jack?
Crouse: He definitely disowned us. Those bridges are totally burned.
GQ: Well, you guys did say a lot of crappy things about him in the aftermath. Hunter, you essentially called him mentally challenged in your interview with CPR. So, honestly, I wouldn’t blame him for not wanting to talk to you guys.
Mankiewicz: Honestly, what do we care? It’s over now.
GQ: No, really, though. I’m going to press you on this one. It’s been a month. And you have appeared to treat Appel with almost total disdain throughout this interview. I want to know how you guys really feel about him.
Crouse: He was dumb. Really dumb. He didn’t really deserve it, but we didn’t really care.
Mankiewicz: That was really his only crime in the end. He was kind, but dumb.
GQ: Do you regret any of this?
Crouse: I don’t know if you’ve gotten this yet, but, buddy: we didn’t give a shit about him. Looking back now, this was just a joke that got waaaaay too far out of hand. Midway through the joke he became a cipher for Gene’s commie shit, and that’s when we just went for broke. Anything after that was gravy.
Mankiewicz: The only thing that sucks about it was that I actually was good at it, you know? If you think about it, I almost got a Socialist elected to the House. In the US. I damn near sent a red commie to same halls that McCarthy used to conduct witch hunts. If there were Oscars of campaign work, I would get one. But, at the same time, who would hire a Socialist? Especially one with my body of work? I, at once, made myself in to a legend in the field, as well as an unhireable pariah. Which is bullshit because I spent five years in DC learning to do it. So, there’s my regret.
…
(excerpted from No One Ever Asked Me: the Appel Campaign from Appel’s View by Jack Appel)
…
It was mean.
That’s the only way to cut it.
It was mean to me, making me out to be a fool. It was mean to the voters, making them out to be a bunch of fools. Hell, it was mean to democracy, making the system itself out to be a fool.
They didn’t need to do this. They were just mean-spirited and bitter leftists who took a joke too far. I may have played my part, but that’s what friends do for friends. Even when it got out of hand, when it looked like we could disrupt the process severely, Fred and Hunter just kept telling me that this was all a joke. That no one would get hurt. They’d say this stuff to me, and then turn around and snicker about how everyone was so dumb. Including me.
It hurts getting used, hurts more to get used by guys you think are your friends, but when you’re an instrument to wound the fabric of democracy itself and you’re getting used?
…
They don’t believe in anything. They weren’t even Socialists, save Gene. They were just pranksters who disdained all who they deemed dumber than them. That’s the tragedy in all of this. That people wasted their votes, their money, and their time on a couple of nihilists’ wet dream.