ELECTION 2008!
Politics is one of Mason's favorite things to write about and this election year is a goldmine for new snippets and timeless zingers. Mason started writing political satire back in 1968 while he was working on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. He was one of the main forces behind the Pat Paulson for President campaign. These experiences allowed Mason to explore ironic and insightful paths to the truth.
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One of Mason's best known creative endeavors was the 1968 Pat Paulsen for President Campaign launched on the original Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour on CBS. The campaign began with Pat's adamant denial that he would run for President. Soon he was appearing at campaign rallies around the country, presiding over 89-cents-a-plate testimonial dinners and actually winning 51 votes in the 1968 New Hampshire primary. What started out as just a series of television comedy sketches eventually grew into one of our most unique mass-media events, with the American people finding a new cultural hero and enjoying the most elaborate political satire in history. Mason not only developed the original idea and wrote much of Pat's material, but also complied a book of speeches and photos from the campaign... which sold pretty well for a book about a loser. |
And Now...
Pat Paulsen runs for President
from the Great Beyond!
From Mason's archives: "I came up with this idea during the 2000 Presidential race three years after Pat died in 1997. I loved the line of thinking that I went into when I wrote for Pat. I guess it was, in an odd sense, a way to stay in touch with his memory, to think of him still out there in the running!"
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THE BILL AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL
When I hear the word “deficit” or national debt, my mind sort of glazes over.
Millions! Billions! Trillions! Gazillions!
Figures I can’t fathom.
The term, “the deficit” needs a visual metaphor. The Bill at the End of the Tunnel works for me.
This gives if a proper visual image – it is, after all, a long, dark, black hole that eventually gobbles up everything around it.
When the democrats were in power, we were paying down our national debt. There was beginning to be “light” at the end of the tunnel. After eight years of the Bush Administration, it’s a longer, darker tunnel with no light and no end in sight. What’s waiting for us all now at the end of the tunnel is the bill.
WALL STREET BAILOUT
Shouldn’t the Freedom of Information Act give the people access to the records of the financial institutions that were bailed out by the government? Then we could see for ourselves exactly who got us into this mess!
DIRTY POLITICS
Mud slinging campaigns
For political gains
Are slurs from the curs who conceive ’em.
The truth, come to pass,
Is your head’s up their ass
As far as you’ll believe ‘em
Various Satirical Essays:
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