A little wordy something from the 2004 go-round:

Excerpt from the first debate

“Excellent question, let me tell you a story. There’s a woman here in the audience tonight by the name of Griselda McWormiviter, a wonderful woman with whom I had the honor of spending some quality time last week when I was out in the heartland of this great country on a listening tour, a great tour through this great country, listening to what you, the great middle class of this great country told me you wanted and needed from a leader, a listening tour where you, the citizens of this great country of ours told me over and over again how my opponent just didn’t understand what you wanted, and there, in the middle of this eye-opening experience I met this wonderful woman, Mrs. McWormiviter, a widow and, I’m guessing strick constitutional constructionist, who, with all the wisdom of her 109 years, who, as I sat in her sitting room, under her collection of supper plates with portraits of all the Presidents of this great country on them, was kind enough to tell me, at length, exactly what’s wrong with this great country of ours, and had enough of the storyteller’s panache to put it all in the context of her long, long, long life, in the context of her, did I mention this, of her 109 years as an American, a citizen of this great country of ours, born in the heartland, reared in the heartland, raising her family in the heartland, losing her husband in the heartland, and now living in the heartland with her cats, one cat for each of her long years before fate and a healthcare system that just doesn’t care about seniors and their pets, took little fat fluffy from her one cold winter’s day last week in the heartland where winters come fast and mean to the tiny prairie towns of that fabulous region of America, fast and mean and heartless winters where seniors like Mrs. Griselda Calabash McWormiviter here, a widow and a cat lover, have to resort to crocheting tea doilies and pot holders to make ends meet, and those, my friends, my fellow Americans, those are the lucky ones, because many people, some of whom I have actually met myself, and laughed with and worked with and held in my caring arms, and yes, even cried with, people who could not make the long trek across the heartland in their American-made road-warrior Winnebagos to be here with us tonight, many of these Americans out there in the heartland have to resort to macrame to make ends meet, and this my fellow Americans is not what my administration is going to be about, my administration is not going to be, will not be, and won’t be about macrame potholders in the heartland, and this is why I have brought Mrs. McWormiviter here tonight, to hold up to you, to have her hold herself up, to stand up all by herself, with of course her cute little cane, and let me tell you about what’s wrong with this country and how it can be fixed, how it can be fixed with the help of wonderful, warm people like Mrs. Griselda McWormiviter, bless her hard-working heartland heart, people who do not want cheap oil at the expense of our precious natural treasures, people who have read and understood and taken to heart books such as Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring,” and Adam Smith’s “The Wealth of Nations,” and of course, Albert Camus’ “The myth of Sisyphus,” people who are still actually living off of the grapes of wrath and maybe even needlepoint or macrame or crochet or what-have-you, kind caring people like Mrs. McWormiviter here, who are not greedy, but giving, and who are happy to pay their fair share of taxes and nothing more, giving no tax cuts to the wealthiest one percent of the population, no, the salt of the earth people are the ones I’m talking about, those who replace animosity with generosity and know through experience that a frown turned upside down is a smile and that all 50 states have a “Springfield,” people like Griselda here, and she told me to just call her that, that being her first name, her given name, her Christian name, yes, because that is the kind of person she is and you are and we are here in my great and esteemed political party, a party dedicated to preservation, exploitation, and syndication of all our natural resources, not just some of them, and a party that knows that our most precious natural resource is Mrs. Griselda McWormiviter, with her 108 cats, her crocheted tea doilies, her collection of Franklin Mint plates, and her gnarled arthritic hands, hopelessly twisted in perma-grasp from crochet needles and bingo-stampers, yes, my fellow Americans, our most precious natural resource is now and has always been, and apparently will continue to be throughout the ages, Mrs. Griselda McWormiviter and all the Mrs. Griselda McWormiviters of our great country, and on this point I just know my worthy opponent and I agree. Jim?”