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No, Don't Thank Me -- It's Time to Give Back

Governor Deval Patrick has a problem. Massachusetts needs a new temporary employee in the U.S. Senate. Someone has to replace John Kerry before the mandated special election sometime in the spring next year (oh, boy, another election! We can all hardly wait.). Patrick says that he doesn't want to appoint anyone who'd then run for the job on a more permanent basis in 2014. He wants a man or woman for whom the appointment would be a honorific to cap a distinguished or at least lengthy political career.

Few people apply to get a gold watch. So far, Patrick is stuck. In the season of giving, let me suggest a perfect placeholder, a human being for whom a three-month stint as an empty suit would be considered actual honest work. Me.

Hey, when the job calls for a nobody, I'm at the front of the line. I fulfill all the constitutional requirements of the office. I'm over 30 and a U.S. citizen. I meet all of Patrick's targets, too. I'm a a Democrat, naming me won't piss off every other pol in the state, although it will baffle them, and I have no intention of running for any office in the state or land. While I don't actually own a suit, I'm sure there will be sales at Jos. A. Banks and Men's Wearhouse right after Christmas.

If appointed, I promise to do whatever Kerry's staff (who will stay on for whatever poor devil gets the job) tells me to. I promise to never appear on television except on C-Span wide shots of the Senate chamber. I promise not to endorse any candidates in the upcoming Democratic primary for the office. Why, I even promise not to write a book about every hilariously and disgracefully embarrassing thing I see my fellow 99 Senators do in front of me.

OK, that last one was a lie. I told you I was ready to be a Senator.

posted by Michael Gee @ 9:17 AM