What happened to me? Back in the good old days I was impervious to whatever they threw at me. Congressional corruption hearings? Cake walks, more like. Smear campaigns? Just call me Windex. I had the whole thing down pat. I'd put on one of those awful brown suits, hide my eyes behind a pair of horribly oversized glasses, style my comb-over to look like an alien spider drunk on the fluids it had sucked from my brain, and apply a shimmering layer of fake flop sweat to my brow. I looked pathetic but dignified, the fall guy who didn't know he did anything wrong. Congress in the 80's was one non-stop parade of artful escapes and glorious misdirections. By the mid 90's I pretty much had tenure, real Strom Thurmond years, I wasn't going anywhere. But then I got greedy. Then she came into my life like some kind of maelstrom of bad PR.

It all happened so fast. I was a long-standing senator from Arizona. I had nice digs, I ate good food. Nobody bothered me. Then one day this suit from the party takes me aside and says he'd like to buy me lunch. I had to ask if he was a lobbyist. I wasn't about to eat another filet mignon while walking just to keep from getting a nasty visit from the Ethics Committee. He told me no, he wasn't a lobbyist. He was from the RNC. Before I know it, I'm surrounded by a dozen movers, shakers and bill-killers telling me I'm gonna be the next President.

I didn't ask for this, but they put me in a hard position. I never had such high aspirations. Things started off so well, though. I was going up against a bunch of choir boys and dolphin murderers. Hell, they even had me going toe-to-toe with a mormon. You can't ask for better odds. When it looked like I was going to face off against a black guy nobody knew or a woman nobody liked, I thought it was a sure thing.

The day Palin showed up in my hotel room, I nearly had a heart attack. Here was this wild-eyed flibbertigibbet ordering my speech writer to bring her bubble tea and putting her shoes up on the bed while she giggled along to the damn A-Team on the TV. When the RNC suits told me this sorry excuse for a lady was my running mate, I knew I was doomed. Believe it or not, I wrote my concession speech that very night.

The campaign was a disaster. I couldn't believe how much went wrong so quickly. And she just wouldn't stop. The clothes, the interviews, the unauthorized state fair appearances. I thought she was just an idiot, but then I saw her the day after the election. Bags packed, a ticket to Hollywood and a silver brooch that said "F U Alaska". That woman stepped on my neck to get to the big time.

That's what perplexes me about her showing up on my re-election trail. What could she possibly gain from ruining me? It's all the same game as before. She opens her mouth, I fade into the background and everything goes to crap. It's spite, or malevolence, or some kind of deal she made with the party. They have it out for me, that's for sure. Maybe it was something I said ten years ago that one suit or another has been letting fester, maybe I'm just a sacrifice on the altar of their bad planning. Whatever it is, I can't have Palin hanging around me like this. My career will be over and all that'll be left is waiting to die. I don't wanna go out like this. Not because of her. Not today.