Laying down the Hatch for Elections II

Ahoy-hoy, me hearties!

Well, here I am again to fulfill, as promised, your deep, damp, burning desire for insights into the world of politics. Been there, done that, Ladies & Gs, and here I am to bring the results to you, my devoted audience. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I am now Chief Political Strategist, Campaign Coordinator, Web Advisor and High Admiral in Jeff 'Kiss me quick' Ooi's campaign to become the Member of Parliament for Jelutong. This kind of brief requires military leves of preparedness and planning, and I have risen to the task like the proverbial porn star's cock. And the Big Jeffuna has given me permission to reproduce here my unique and superior Four-Step Strategy To Slam Dunking The Pilihan Raya, for my readers' eyes only. Patent pending, folks...so don't get any big ideas - they're not going to happen. You'll go to hell for what your dirty mind is thinking.

uno) Book

After settling into my new workspace in Jeff's campaign headquarters, which I have dubbed the Oval Office (the interns call it the Oral Office, wink wink), the first thing I asked Jeff was, "When are you publishing your book?"

To which he replied, "Book? What book?"

To which I replied, "Brother...you must publish a book, how else are you going to win? People think of you as a sage, a prophet. You must put down all your teachings in a single resource for them to quote at their relatives over dinner. Obama did it, now you must too."

"Aiyah," he said, "I haven't the time for to writing."

"No no no... don't write it now... use stuff that you've already written. The important thing is you have to get this book out before the campaign period is over."

"Oh I see...well, I have writing one column in Malaysian Business, but ah...I embarrass in saying lah, but ah...actually, to write that column I just take sentences from Business Times and Time and mix them all up randomly using one program I download from Internet. Then I use one different program to mess up the grammar, so nobody will suspect."

"Doesn't matter, brother," I quickly reassured him, "Just faster compile them into one book and find one joker to print it. Nobody can take you seriously unless you have hit the printed page, come on, as bloggers we all know this. And make sure to use the foreword to imply what a good leader you are, and dedicate the book to the people of Penang. Actually, no... make that the Penang Diaspora - when in doubt, use big words you don't fully comprehend; nobody else really understands them either, so you'll be fine. You must not miss this opportunity for maximum bodeking and self-glorification. In fact, don't just say that you're a good leader, imply that you're a...a thought leader. Yes, yes...and say that Malaysia too must be the thought leader of the world - no, wait! Say that Malaysia must lead in thought leadership! That way you use the word 'lead' twice! Also say something about the economy, because the economy makes food and people like food. Oh wait, no- don't say the economy, say the Knowledge Economy! That covers food and brain things! My gosh, am I on a fucking roll or what?!" I turned to him, excitement burning in my eyes.

"Uh...but what the Knowledge Economy means?", asked Jeff.

"Aiyoh, why're you worried about the details? Let me worry about the details, brother. You just remember to use the words 'thought' and knowledge' and 'leader' and 'leadership' as much as you possibly can. That way people will think that you know what you're talking about."

Here we come, NY Times Bestseller List! Watch out, Dan Brown, you are about to get SERVED, in the immediate future.

dos) Don't Commit to Anything Specific a.k.a. The 'Egg' Stratagem

I pointed out to Jeff that nine years ago his rival, Koh Tsu Koon, made the foolishly specific promise that Penang would be at the level of Singapore in 10 years time. And look at Penang today - still with only one bridge, still without legalised prostitution and people still haven't learned to drive. So I instructed Jeff to attack this ridiculous promise while at the same time never providing any equivalent promises of his own. See, ol' Mr. Koh made a big mistake when he just mouthed off in the attempt to get votes - the cardinal rule of mouthing off to get votes is, don't ever be specific! So while I got Jeff to use his insider knowledge of the IT industry to pinpoint businesses that are leaving Penang, and even taught him to take down the illogical figures put forward by his opponents, through the whole thing I made sure that he never replied with any actual policies or plans. This is a commonly used tactic of the Malaysian opposition, who without fail campaign on the platform that if elected they will not be BN. In today's world, I told Jeff, nobody who knows anything still believes in positive campaigning and positive politics. You need to be negative all the way. I knew I'd succeeded in educating Jeff on this crucial point when I heard him say this in an interview with his best pal Tan Sri Rocky bin Allahyarham Hj. Bru:

It’s an ageing constituency as only 15.7 per cent of the people are below 35 years old. Jelutong has been punished by BN while it was in opposition hands. It needs to catch up with development and better quality of life. Bread and butter issues reign high. There are strong ill feelings against inequitable distribution of national wealth. Now that the cost of living has gone up, unhappiness is fermenting.

Isn't that just awesome? Aren't you in awe? Look at that - he can quote a statistic, attack the government (without proposing any solutions to the mess they've made), use key words like 'unhappiness', 'inequitable' and 'distribution', name drop the economy with food-related terms such as 'bread', 'butter' and 'fermenting', and through the whole thing he manages to say nothing at all, and reproduce only the most banal, safe and non-committal political platitudes that we as Malaysians have loved listening to for the last 50 years! I keep telling Jeff, don't submit any projections about the economy, and if you have to use figures make sure to be vague and confusing; which is why, thus far, the only other statistic he has used in his campaign is this one, also found in that same seminal interview with The Rock(y):

Let's not count the egg before it's hatched.

Amazing! Does this man know his shit or what?! See, in one fell swoop he has counseled caution regarding predictions of the future, and yet he has also hinted at what that future might be, but without committing, so that he can change direction at the last second! Is he promising one egg? Or many? If it's one, why will we need to count it? Does counting to one actually qualify as counting? And if he's saying it'll be one egg, doesn't that mean that he has already counted the egg? The mind boggles, and the electorate will be kept occupied, pondering the actual meaning of this statement for a long time before they notice that the dust has settled and what has hatched from Jeff is not an egg at all but in fact a piece of shit. Genius. I was so pleased with this quote of Jeff's that I've decided it should be the campaign slogan, which it now is. At one point Jeff did ask me, "But brother, what happen after if we winning electorate, I have no ideas about future action as MP?" And I said to him, "Jeff, my dear, pure-hearted friend, do you really think anyone in this country has any idea what they'll do after they're elected to public office?"

How many eggs are there here? This very scientific diagram is proof of Jeff's commitment to counting eggs only, after the elections.

tres) Start a Donation Drive to Make It Seem as Though Your Campaign Has a Point

I did think, however, that we could potentially face a problem from members of the public who notice that Jeff isn't actually laying out any kind of strategy to correct the problems of the nation, so I came up with, if you don't mind me saying so myself, an astoundingly brilliant gimmick. See, we all know that BN has shitloads of money to throw at campaigns, whereas the opposition are all a bunch of paupers living out of prime bungalows in USJ, right? So why not start a donation drive, with a target amount that Jeff claims to want to raise for his campaign? Basically, with a high-yet-feasible amount (after careful calculations I elected to go with RM100,000), people will be distracted into thinking that Jeff's campaign is actually fighting towards something tangible. We all know that for Malaysians the most tangible thing in the world is cash - oh so cold, oh so hard, and oh so tangible. This campaign fund idea has been a roaring success, with Jeff tagging a reminder about it onto each and every one of his posts to distract people from the general vacuity of everything he says. So if some naysayer comes along and naysays, "What are you actually going to do about the situation in Penang, Jeff... what kind of policy approach will you be taking?", Jeff can reply "I have raised close to RM100,000! We are in a fight, a race to reach RM100,000! Help me raise RM100,000!" I even managed to tie in the Book element of my strategy to this campaign fund, by getting Jeff to offer a copy of his book to everyone who donates! Which solves the problem of actually selling the damned thing, thank heavens. However, perhaps my success with this strategy has been a little too scintillating - the campaign kitty has already breached the RM100,000 mark. "What will we do now that you've gotten there prematurely?" is a question Jeff has heard many times before from his wife, although on this occasion it was myself asking it. Of course, in both situations the question was purely rhetorical, because in both cases the solution was clearly not something Jeff could provide. Curiously, the solution-provider in both cases also happened to be me. Small world, eh? Anyway, we've hit RM100,000, so now what? Well, I won't say anything, except that there's a reason why the electoral commission allows us RM200,000 in total. ;-)

What's that you ask? Is Jeff actually fit for government, or for anything else besides being a steaming turd? Now now, sit down and I'll address your concerns. No, I insist - sit. Hey, look what I found! What a pretty picture! Look! Okay, now stare at it... stare at it... staaaare at it... You are growing veryyyy sleeeeepeeee.... you will falll into a deeeep sleeeeeeeep.... veryyyy.... shooooortly....

catorce!) Rally the Bloggers!

Lastly but not leastly, we have to remember the people who made Jeff what he is today: the legions of Malaysian bloggers. Yes, my pretty, you and I - it is we who are responsible for Jeff's ascendance and his amazing ability to take on the political process despite being unable to coherently lead an argument, let alone a constituency. Thus, I considered it crucial that Jeff make it clear to his fellow bloggers, a race that we all know to be superior to all other Malaysians, that there ought to be a member of our hallowed bloodline in a position of authority. It's a simple political tactic - feed on people's sense of superiority and make them think that what they are is somehow relevant to being a good leader in and of itself, and that hence they must vote one of themselves into power. It's sort of like a stamp-collector deciding to run for parliament on the basis that stamp-collectors are superior human beings and hence must lead the rest. It doesn't matter if stamp-collecting, like blogging, is largely irrelevant to leadership. What does matter is that one of us is in power, rather than one of them.

Now that's what I'm talking about! Get a blogger into Parliament, before those damned cricket umpires and Magic: The Gathering players get one of their own in there, in 6 days' time.

So there you have it, my lovely disciples - through this strategy of my devising, I believe Jeff cannot possibly lose this election. But we must work hard, and stick out our necks for Malaysia. Let's not count the egg before it's hatched.