The Homeliest Candidate

My dad is running for a seat on the school board back home. It wasn't his idea, but he has been a real good sport about the whole thing.

Running for the school board, or any sort of elected office, was never really on Homely's to-do list. As I understand it, the school board has two major functions: 1. having meetings and 2. attending the graduation ceremonies of the various high schools.

Homely is NOT a fan of meetings. In fact, he has an inflatable pillow tie that he wears to stake meetings so that he can nap in comfort. He is also not a big fan of graduations, as evidenced by the fact that he tried to pay-off his assorted children in futile attempts to avoid the dry speeches and never ending line of marching caps and gowns. But, after being told that he would be running for the school board, my dear old dad decided not to focus on the boring meetings aspect of the job. He decided to focus instead on what he could do for the district that educated him, and all six of his children. In these troubled times, with education coming under attack from all sides, Homely admitted that it was his duty to try and help out in some way.

Of course, his present lack of concern over the boring meeting thing could also have something to do with the fact that he would actually have to be elected first. And that is far from a sure thing considering his, um, political affiliation.

As his daughter with the political mindset (or, at least, the correct political mindset - Sorry Jen), I decided that I would chip-in by coming up with some campaign slogans.

Homely is kind of partial to his own, "Haws...It's not just another four-letter word," and when you take his colorful Sunday vocabulary into account, it is rather fitting. But there are just so many other possibilites!

The fact that he attended school in the district should factor in there somewhere. Maybe... "Elect Homely: District 91 made him what he is today. Now, it's payback time."

We could also try something that would appeal to like-minded people. Perhaps, "A Vote for Homely is a vote for shorter graduation ceremonies."

Then there is the family angle.

"Vote For Homely: He made room in his home for teachers, jocks, nerds, and band geeks. He'll do his best to make room for them in the budget too."

"Elect Homely for School Board: His favorite grandkids live in the district, so he'll do his best not to screw it up."

"Vote for Homely: He's NOT the Haws that was arrested for mooning a police officer."

Or we could focus on his stellar coaching career.

"Coach Homely spent five years teaching your spastic kid to dribble and shoot. Voting for him is the least you could do."

I was thinking we should take advantage of his impressive amount of first-name recognition. Truth in political advertising is also a hot topic right now, so we could combine the two and go with something works on both levels, like, "Looking for an honest public servant? Vote for Homely, because he is." Get it? It works on two levels.

A few other thoughts...

"Vote for Homely: He's not that kind of Democrat."

"Haws for School Board: Come on Idaho. If you could elect a dude named 'Butch' governor, you should be able to put a guy name 'Homely' on the school board without breaking a sweat." I'm not above going for the sympathy vote either. Sympathy for my mom, that is.

"Joyce had enough charity to marry him. You just need to have enough to vote for him."

If he decideds to use this photo on his campain posters and/or flyers, we could play around with things like, "The candidate with the cleanest campaign" or, "He'll clean up school politics", or "He only takes a bath on Saturday nights so that he can work for our schools the rest of the week."

I haven't run any of these slogans past Homely's campaign manager yet, but I'm sure he will love them... or not. But either way, I am just happy to be contributing to my dad's latest adventure in some small way.

Of course, seeing as how no one I have ever voted for has ever been elected, moving out of town and thereby making myself ineligible to vote for him was probably my greatest contribution to the Elect Homely cause. But, like I said, I'm happy to do my part.

And now, if you will excuse me, I need to call my sister and offer some preemptive apologies for at least two parts of this post. Love ya Jenny... despite your misguided and completly wrong political opinions.