Andy Borowitz
Quixotic candidate denies spoiler role
http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | Political activist Ralph Nader’s eleventh-hour decision to run for president of Afghanistan has plunged that nation’s first democratic election into chaos, raising fears that a final electoral result may not be known for months, if ever.
Mr. Nader, frustrated that his poll numbers in the U.S. presidential race have been stuck at 2 percent for the past few months, made the decision last Thursday to shift his campaign to Afghanistan, where polls showed him garnering 3 percent.
Traveling to Kabul with his entire campaign staff, consisting of two sophomores on leave from Oberlin College, Mr. Nader barnstormed his way across Afghanistan, hoping to pick up support from those Afghans displeased with the choice of candidates in their historic first election.
But even as Mr. Nader denied that he was playing the role of spoiler, his quixotic bid for the presidency of Afghanistan seems to have siphoned off just enough votes from President Hamid Karzai to throw the election into Afghanistan’s Supreme Court, which does not yet exist.
Mr. Karzai was not the only one irked by Mr. Nader’s long-shot candidacy, however, as angry warlords across the country vowed to hunt down the erstwhile consumer advocate and exact brutal revenge.
“I fought the Soviets, I fought the Taliban, and now I will fight Ralph Nader,” said Mohammed Mohaqiq, an anti-Nader warlord in the western city of Herat.
Elsewhere, Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry said today that The New York Times misquoted him as saying that terror is a nuisance, explaining that what he actually said was, “Teresa is a nuisance.”
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JWR Contributor Andy Borowitz, the first-ever recipient of the National Press Club's Award for Humor, is a former president of the Harvard Lampoon,and a regular humor columnist for Newsweek.com, The New Yorker, The New York Times and TV Guide. Recognized by Esquire magazine as one of the most powerful producers in television, he was the creator and producer of the hit TV series The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and producer of the Oscar-nominated film Pleasantville. He is the author of, most recently, "The Borowitz Report : The Big Book of Shockers" Comments by clicking here. Visit his website by clicking here.
