Dan Rather: Welcome to this, the first of the presidential debates between candidates of the overworked party and the concerned parental party. These parties first attained political prominence in the runoffs in Butte montana, after a two-city whistle stop left them outside with no shoes or votes. But this year, the parties have unexpectedly shot to the top of the charts, figureheaded by their candidates, who, oddly, are related to each other. At first glance, Ronald and Edna Carp are an ordinary American couple. A second glance confirms the first. But a third glance reveals that beneath the veneer lie troubled waters. Which has led to quite a pair of campaigns. In a recent poll, over thirty Americans said they found the race "interesting". In a more recent poll, the same thirty odd Americans said they objected to being called "odd". I'd like to add here that while the campaign strategists are calling this a debate, it can perhaps better be referred to as a "squabble" -- but while I'd like to add that, I won't. Let's turn our attention to Laurie Anderson, tonight's moderate.
Laurie Anderson: Good evening, Mr. Carp. Let me put it to you this way: you're walking down the street. It's dark. You haven't been this way before. And you say to yourself: "Wow! If I haven't been this way before, then why is this street named after me? And this park?" And then you start to think, maybe it's the other way around. Maybe you're named after the street. Stop. Turn around. What is your name?
Ronald: That's easy, my name is Ronald Carp. But I just want to say one thing to the American people: this is the first chance I've gotten to speak to my wife since the beginning of this campaign, and it's because she's so busy being a political candidate that she can't even hold down her end of the fort for little Timmy back home!
Laurie Anderson: Mrs. Carp?
Edna: That's a baldfaced lie, Ronald! How can you say that after everything I bought? Do you realize how many board meetings I've had to sit through for each of little Timmy's shoes? How many times I've had to have my secretary put people on hold so that I could answer little Timmy's math questions? He wouldn't have had a cell phone to call me from school with if I hadn't gotten that promotion last year!
Laurie Anderson: Recently I've become concerned about family values. Everybody knows what a value is. It's a sale. A markdown. A scaling back. Now a family is a totally different matter. It's a risk. A liability. An unknown quantity. And what worries me is: it doesn't add up. The only person who knows how to evaluate a risk is an actuary. So put on your hat.
Ronald: This whole debate is a debacle, Edna, and it's your fault! Is this the kind of question you spend all day talking about on your corporate ladder, or is it some kind of code?
Edna: The latter.
Ronald: The corporate latter?
Edna: No, the latter -- the code.
Ronald: Well Ronald, I don't talk code -- not when little Timmy is watching at home, waiting for some sign from you that you even remember who he is!
Edna: Someday Ronald, Timmy will understand that not only did I remember who he was but I remembered to merge my stock options with General Dynamics before 1997, so that his college fund would survive the run on the federal reserve in 1999, so that he could be educated enough to not make the same mistake I did by marrying a spineless idiot like you!
Ronald: Edna, you really know how to hurt a guy.
Laurie Anderson: Final question: in the 1970's, a new species of insect appeared in Montana. They were kind of round and didn't seem to have any eyes. At first people didn't know what to make of them, but then one day a man who owned a hat store looked at one and said: if this is an insect, then I'm a monkey's uncle. Which, in fact, he turned out to be.
Edna: Listen, American people: Ronald's whole family values campaign is a smokescreen for the fact that he wouldn't know what to do with fiscal policy if it poured him a martini and did his nails!
Ronald: What's that supposed to mean, Edna? And since when did you become so friendly with the American people? Is there something you're not telling me?
Laurie Anderson: Ronald and Edna, your time is up. Over. Punch the clock. This is the time. The time is now. Now or never. It's never too late.
Dan Rather: Well, I think we can all agree that Edna cleaned up on that one, offering a firm hand in the domestic arena while Ronald was clearly caught off guard. Nuff said. Now for a word from Beef.