Dear Senator Clinton:
When I heard that you have now spent about $12 million of your own money on what is looking increasingly like a mathematical impossibility, I had a thought.
Since you're paying for this anyway, and the odds of winning are about the same as W and Michael Moore going out for a beer after an afternoon of brush cutting, why not say exactly what you feel?
Think about it: simple truth as a campaign strategy. What do you have to lose?
I've taken the liberty of putting together a new stump speech.
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It's great to be here in (place).
I can't believe I'm standing in the back of a pick up truck. Never owned one - probably never will.
But what am I going to do here in the heartland -- stand on the hood of a Volvo?
As you may have noticed, even with a world-class IQ, and an Ivy League law degree, I'm all of a sudden dropping my g's: workin' hard, talkin' to folks, doin' all I can for America.
I'm not sure how I get away with that. You know I don't talk like this on the Senate floor, right?
I need to set some things straight today.
First is our security.
There are still people out there who would like to kill us.
There aren't a lot of them. But they want to get us so badly that they're OK with killing themselves in the process.
We've had a pretty good run since 9-11.
I really don't know if we have Al Qaeda's home office stuck in caves, or if they are just lying low and enjoying our agony in Iraq.
I don't know how many genuine close calls we've had, or how many were morons who thought they could bring down the Golden Gate Bridge with bolt cutters.
Sooner or later, somebody is going to try to hurt us again.
I hope I can stop them. It doesn't matter what time the call comes in. I'll do the best I can.
What kills me is that I know I contributed to the threat.
I voted to invade Iraq. And I still feel terrible about that.
As it turns out, this is either the dumbest administration in American history, or the most cynically dishonest. Maybe both.
Who knew?
The Secretary of State went to the UN and said he had evidence that a certified lunatic was trying to build a nuclear bomb.
I thought I should vote not to let that happen.
Now: if you elect me, I have a terrible choice.
We can leave.
But the Iraqi Army is a joke. They are never going to shoot at guys from the neighborhood. And they won't attack anything unless we bomb the b'jesus out of it first.
If I pull the troops, the Sunnis and Shiites are going to fight like two mean dogs that have hated each other for years - and just found a hole in the fence.
We'll watch it start from the windows of the last plane out.
Or:
I can keep troops there, and more Americans will die.
This isn't going to be like Korea, where we call a 50-year time out and leave behind thousands of soldiers to play cards.
This time, it's not ideology. It's oil.
As long as the oil is up for grabs, this fight will never stop. For the next 50 years, we'll just be referees with guns.
As for the price of oil, I know I talked about taking on OPEC and the oil companies. But that isn't really going to happen.
First, OPEC no longer cares what a U.S. president says.
Of the 13 members, nine countries tolerate us and four hate us. The president of one of them told the UN that our current leader is the devil and smells like sulfur.
OPEC used to have to deal with us because we were the only super-economy in town. If we went south, so did crude prices.
Now that China and India are talking about putting billions of people in cars, OPEC can sell to us, without listening to us.
It's an all-time seller's market.
Blaming the oil companies makes great sound bites.
I love using my tough-girl voice to say things like: "I'm going to take on the oil companies that are getting rich on the backs of honest, hardworking Americans."
That's great stuff.
But if they were doing anything wrong, we would have caught them by now. They're just in the right place at the right time.
We'll call them into Senate hearings and slap them around some for the cameras. They'll stick to their talking points. And then we'll all go back to work.
It's one of the longest-running shows in politics.
I knew I was going to take a lot of abuse for suggesting they pay for a gas-tax holiday.
The economists say it's useless. The opposition says it's pandering.
I prefer to think of it as a nice gesture.
If you don't want the $35.00 - fine.
I also said I would take on the oil traders.
I really can't do that either.
Oil is now a volatile, global, tradable asset.
And when you have big-money volatility, you have speculators.
These are very smart people who figure out how to beat the market and crush innocent bystanders.
Like the dot coms, Enron and drive-through mortgages, we're probably going to find out something shady was going on.
But by the time we figure it out and pass our next rounds of too-late legislation, other very smart people will be working on something new.
That, my friends, is never going to change.
There is a reason why these people make hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars, and the people we depend on to watch them are working for government pay.
Windmills and solar panels aren't going to get us out of this. It's all about the consumption.
The only thing that will do enough, fast enough to change our oil dependence is to make huge changes in how we live.
And you hate that.
I'm talking about outlawing the manufacture of any car that doesn't get more than 50 miles a gallon.
I'm talking about slower cars and smaller houses.
I'm talking about a national crash program to build nuclear plants - in spite of those who are afraid of them and in places you don't want them.
I'm talking about sacrificing things that we've been telling you all your lives are yours just because you're American.
Other countries want those same things. And now they can afford them.
We're going to have to learn to share.
And you're not crazy about that either.
A few other things.
I feel terrible about those of you who have lost jobs.
I know I told you I can save them. But I can't.
The global economy isn't going to go away, and the jobs aren't coming back. In fact, we're going lose more.
We don't run the world like we used to. It's not that we're getting weaker. Others are getting stronger.
And that's good. People who do business with each other tend not to shoot at each other.
Unless we have trade agreements with Brazil, Russia, India, China and comers like Indonesia and Ireland, we're going to be on the outside looking in.
Besides, trade agreements are just one factor in lost jobs.
Technology is a much bigger one. For decades now, it's been helping us to do more things with fewer people.
What do you want me to do about that? Sanction Microsoft?
The only thing you can do is figure out a way to be where the demand is.
I'll try to help you with that.
But I'm not going to dismantle NAFTA. And you know it.
For the record, I don't like guns.
I see no reason why we should allow anyone to make and sell weapons that have no other purpose than to kill people.
I see even less reason why anybody should be allowed to sell assault weapons that have no other purpose than to kill a lot of people at the same time.
And I really don't think you hunters in Pennsylvania and Ohio believe that if we take assault rifles off the street, we'll be coming after your deer rifles next.
But I'm scared to death of the NRA. These are tough people. They're organized. And they have money.
They beat Al Gore in the state where he grew up.
As long as they have a say in whether or not I win this state, I'll keep telling you how my father taught me to shoot.
But seriously: when do you think was the last time I touched a gun?
I don't hunt. And I have Secret Service protection. Those guys do have the guns.
Actually, there were times in my marriage when having a gun handy would not have been such a good thing.
(Pause for laughter)
On that score ...
I really appreciate that neither the media nor my opponent has dwelled on the fact that my co-campaigner had repeated sex with an unpaid 22 year old Intern in the house where we used to live.
So far, you let me get away with putting my daughter out front to say it's a private matter. That actually worked better than we thought it would.
But I'm worried about the Republicans.
The 527 groups live for this kind of thing.
If they can turn a war hero into someone soft on terrorism, while their own guy can't prove he showed up for National Guard service, think what they can do to us.
So:
I just thought I'd take a shot here, and tell you the truth.
What the hell - it's my money.
There is not much I can promise that I'm sure I can actually deliver.
This job is not nearly as powerful as we like to say it is.
So how about this?
If you elect me, I'll have good intentions, be as honest as the job allows, try to keep you safe, and maybe make things a little better.
Until then, I'll just keep workin', fightin' and doin' the best I can.
God bless you. And God bless America.
Now get me off this truck.