Well, here it is, 1983, so it won't be long before you start reading a
lot of boring stories about people like Vance Hartke. Hartke is a
governor or mayor or something from one of the flatter states, and the
reason you'll be reading about him is that he's one of the 50 top
contenders for the 1984 Democratic presidential nomination. These men
will spend the next 18 months going around the country engaging in the
most degrading activities imaginable, such as wearing idiot hats and
appearing on Meet the Press. Meet the Press is one of those Sunday
morning public interest shows that the public is not the least bit
interested in. It features a panel of reporters who ask questions of a
guest politician, who wins an Amana home freezer if he can get through
the entire show without answering a single question ...
-- Dave Barry, On Presidential Politics
He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience like a guy
who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those
boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at
high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one
of those boxes with a pinhole in it....
