Official Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail 2008 Thread

[Leopolds Ghost]

( Woman's Voice )...



~ Raindrops on roses ~






~ And whiskers on kittens ~





~ Bright copper kettles ~





~ And warm woolen mittens ~





~ Brown paper packages ~






~ Tied up with string ~





~ These are a few ~



~ Of my favorite things ~





We were somewhere around
Barstow, on the edge of the caucus site...





when the candidates' message
began to take hold.




(see )
http://www.script-o-rama.com/movie_scripts/f/fear-and-loathing-in-las-vegas-script.html
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2682449

[NightWatcher]

1. excellent, the Good Doctor would be proud.

damn I am missing his coverage of this crazy election year. He loved this stuff.

[Hekate]

2. ~*~

[Leopolds Ghost]

13. 10 AM on a Saturday Morning. Who WERE These Sad-Eyed Nevada Caucus-goers?

[Leopolds Ghost]

18. Still humping the American Dream... that vision of the big winner...

somehow emerging from the last-minute, at-large caucus of a stale Vegas casino.

[Leopolds Ghost]

19. Show of hands, come on, come on... --that's ten for Hillary Clinton. --Oh! You bastard!

- Shit. ( Sighs )
- Sorry.

[Leopolds Ghost]

20. No, no. Calm down. ..... Learn to enjoy losing.

[Leopolds Ghost]

31. Did I call it? Did I call it?

x( :evilfrown: :think:

[IdesOfOctober]

3. When the dog bites...

... bookmarked, kicked, rec'd and will play after the party is over.

:toast:

Ides

[Leopolds Ghost]

4. What are you doing at a Birthday Party? Didn't you get my telegram?

(Ides Of October)

What telegram, you worthless bastard ?
I'll cripple your ass for this.

(Dr. Leopolds Ghost)

You brainless scumbag,
you're supposed to be in Vegas.


I rented a thread
in General Discussion.


You're supposed to be covering the
Nevada Democratic caucus.


- I made all the reservations.

Everything is arranged.

- ( Bird Cawing )


Now, what the fuck are you doing out
there in the middle of the desert ?


(Ides of October)

Nothing. Never mind.
It's all a big joke.


I'm actually, uh-- I'm poolside
at the DU Lounge right now...


talking through a portable phone some
dwarf brought out from the casino.


Yeah, I have total credit here.


Don't come anywhere
near this place, you bastard.


Foreigners
aren't welcome here.

http://www.script-o-rama.com/movie_scripts/f/fear-and-loathing-in-las-vegas-script.html

[IdesOfOctober]

9. What telegram? I'll hobble your worthless ass for this.

[Leopolds Ghost]

12. As your attorney, I advise you to rent a fast-talking media head with no convictions.

And the cocaine.

Acapulco shirts.

Focus group for special polling.

Get the hell out of Washington for 48 hours.

Ruins my f*king weekend.

Because naturally I'll have to go to the caucus site with you.

[jus_the_facts]

5. "Myths and legends die hard in America......

....We love them for the extra dimension they provide, the illusion of near-infinite possibility to erase the narrow confines of most men's reality. Weird heroes and mould-breaking champions exist as living proof to those who need it that the tyranny of ''the rat race'' is not yet final." Hunter Stockton Thompson

[Leopolds Ghost]

6. FINISH... THE F*%ING... STORY! :-)

"One voter in line, sweet Jesus..." One vote? You poor fool. Wait'll you see those goddam bats, I thought.

Strange memories on this nervous night on DU. Has it been five weeks? Six? It seems like a lifetime, the kind of peak that never comes again. Democratic Underground in the middle of Primary season was a very special time and place to be a part of. But no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant.

And that, I think, was the handle -- that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn't need that. Our energy would simply prevail. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave.

So now, less than four years after Ohio...


you can go up a steep hill in Las Vegas
and look east...


and with the right kind of eyes, you can almost see
the high-water mark...


that place where the wave
finally broke...


and rolled back.


- ~ Try to love one another right now ~
- { Waves Gently Crashing }

[IdesOfOctober]

11. Oh, God, did you drink Mark Penn's Kool-Aid?

[Leopolds Ghost]

21. We're all wired into a survival trip now.

No more of the speed that fueled the 2004 campaign.


That was the fatal flaw
in John Kerry's trip.


He crashed around America,
selling "consciousness expansion"...


without ever giving a thought
to the grim meat-hook realities
that were lying in wait...


for all those people
who took him seriously.


All those pathetically eager
Democrats...


who thought they could buy peace and
understanding for three bucks a hit.


But their loss
and failure...


is ours too.


What Kerry took down with him was the
central illusion of a whole lifestyle...


that he helped create.


A generation
of permanent idealists...


failed office-seekers...


who never understood the essential
old-mystic fallacy of the Beltway culture:


the desperate assumption
that somebody...


or at least some force...


is tending the light
at the end of the tunnel.

[IdesOfOctober]

22. Penn was the fatal flaw in Hill's power trip.

You just backed over
A scene's worth of dialogue
and didn't even slow down.


What, were you going
about,uh, oh,
I don't know, 90 f**king miles an hour backwards?

[Leopolds Ghost]

27. It's OK. My candidate's Samoan, I think. We're your friends. We're not like the others.

[Leopolds Ghost]

7. What a strange night in Nevada. I remember what it was like 4 years ago.

The great 2004 DU acid wave.


~ When the truth is found ~
~ To be lies ~


I recall one night in a place
called the Nevada caucus.


There I was--

~ And all the joy ~


--Mother of God. There I am.


Holy fuck.


Uh, clearly I was a victim
of the blog explosion...


a natural street freak
just eating whatever came by.


The Nevada caucus is what the whole hep world
would be doing Saturday night...


if the Nazis
had won the War.


This was the Sixth Reich.

[IdesOfOctober]

8. Enter a dwarf named Dick Morris.

[DefenseLawyer]

10. No! Dick Morris felt sorry for the girl, he wanted to help her!

That's what Fatty Arbuckle said, and you know what they did to him.

[Leopolds Ghost]

14. Ow! She's biting my leg off! You degenerate pig.

- ( Grunting Continues )

- Can't be helped.


- My fucking leg !

- That's "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds."

Lucy, be cool, goddamn it.

Remember what happened at the Las Vegas airport, okay ? Come on.


No more of that, okay ?

That's my client, Lucy.


He's a famous presidential candidate.


He's paying for this suite, Lucy.


He's on our side.

He loves artists.

Lucy paints portraits of Hillary Clinton.

Yeah. Right ?


- Um, I drew these from TV.


I desperately needed peace, rest...

sanctuary.

I hadn't counted on this:

finding my top campaign consultant on acid
and locked into some kind
of preternatural courtship.

[DefenseLawyer]

16. I hate to say this

but this place is getting to me. I think I'm getting the fear.

[Leopolds Ghost]

17. Nonsense. We came here to find the American Dream.

Now that we're right
in the vortex, you wanna quit ?

You must realize, man,
this is DU. We've found the main nerve.


-- There's, uh, two primary caucusgoers fucking a polar bear.


Don't tell me those things.

[DefenseLawyer]

23. Don't fuck around!

One more hour on DU and I'll kill somebody.

[IdesOfOctober]

25. *hiccup* OK, I'll lend you a DUzy.

[Leopolds Ghost]

28. When is this foul political merry-go round going to stop?

Hey, come on. Let's go downstairs to the casino and vote.

Quick, Iike a bunny! Hop! hop!

Oh, you sniveling, chicken shit bastard !

[DefenseLawyer]

30. It won't stop. It's not ever going to stop.

This primary season makes me very nervous. I feel on the verge of a freakout.

[Leopolds Ghost]

32. I feel a bit lightheaded. Maybe you should post.

- Hmm ?

Suddenly there was
a terrible roar all around us...

and the sky was full of
what looked like huge Talking Heads...

- all swooping and screeching
and diving around the television set.

[Leopolds Ghost]

33. And a voice was screaming: Holy Jesus, what are these goddamned animals?

Was that me?


No point in mentioning
these talking heads, I thought.


The poor bastard'll
see them soon enough.

[DefenseLawyer]

34. Keep your hands off my fucking candidate's neck!

Our vibrations were getting nasty — but why? I was puzzled, frustrated. Was there no communication in this primary? Had we deteriorated to the level of dumb beasts?

[Leopolds Ghost]

35. I'm a Doctor of Political Journalism. This is important, goddamnit !

This is a fucking true story !


There's one thing you should probably
understand-- CAN YOU HEAR ME !!?


Good.


I want you to have
all the background.


- This is a very ominous assignment...


with overtones of
extreme personal danger.

[DefenseLawyer]

36. The truth is

we’re going to Vegas to croak a scag baron named Savage Mitt. We've known him for years, but he ripped us off — and you know what that means, right? Savage Mitt has cashed his check! That bastard won’t get away with this! What’s going on in this country when a scumsucker like that can get away with sandbagging a doctor of journalism?

[Leopolds Ghost]

38. I thought we were going to South Carolina to croak a scag baron named Savage Huckabee.

My blood is too thick for South Carolina.


I've never been able to properly
explain myself in this climate.


(They chopped his goddamn head off right
there in the parking lot...


and cut all kinds of holes in her
and sucked out the blood.


They were after the pineal gland,
I think. Yeah.)


Ignore this terrible push poll, I thought.

[Hekate]

15. Uncle Duke? Uncle Duke, is that you? >kick< watch out, it bites

:kick:

want to see where this goes

Hekate

[ellisonz]

24. Loathing.

Anything that gets the adrenalin moving like a 440 volt blast in a copper bathtub is good for the reflexes and keeps the veins free of cholesterol... but too many adrenaline rushes in any given time span has the same effect on the nervous system as too many electro-shock treatments are said to have on the brain: after a while you start burning out the circuits. When a jackrabbit gets addicted to road-running, its only a matter of time before he gets smashed — and when a journalist turns into a politics junkie he will sooner or later start raving and babbling in print about things that only a person who has Been There can possibly understand.

[Leopolds Ghost]

29. "Back from our Caucus in Henderson Nevada... what a cluster fuck..."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x4119962

I remembered the girl with the sign-in sheet. Hillary supporter.

We'd had a problem with her at the caucus a few hours earlier.

My attorney had made a fool of himself.

- I think you look just like Barack Obama.

You think so ? (whispers)

- You must be an operative.

Huh ? Huh ?

She's, uh, speaking to you.

- What precinct class are you in ?

Class ? What the fuck do you mean ?

- Who do you caucus for ?

See, we're here getting a little footage on the race for--

( Chuckles ) a television series.

I thought maybe, um, we could use you.


Oh, use me ? I ride a--

"Mother of God," I thought. Here it comes.

I ride the Big fuckers. You know ? BIG ones.


- ( Both Chuckling nervously )


Kucinich Black Shadow, I interjected.


We're with the, uh, factory team.


Bullshit.

- What ?

Bullshit! Uh-oh.

I think there's some kind of ignorant, chicken shit-- Move over, man.

An ignorant chicken fucker in this caucus site.


You pink motherfucker.


I can show you better than I can tell you who I'm voting for, ma'am.

Got a light ? Hmm ? ( elbows correspondent ) ( produces knife )


( Correspondent Chuckles nervously ) - No.


You don't trust me, do you ? Huh ?

- It's okay. I know these guys.

Keep smiling, jerk-off. Keep trying me.

- You wanna impress her ?

Well, impress her with me.

- ( Yelping )


Oh, fuck. ( Sighs )


(Later: After the caucus)


( Gonzo )
Whoo !


- Whoo ! Whoo !
- No, you goddamn freak ! Freak !


- ( Jabbering )
- Oh, shit !

The police will be coming after you.


- Gimme the key.
- Shh. Shh.

Gimme the goddamn key !


- ~ For your love ~
- Whoo !


- ~ For your love ~


- ~ I give you everything and more ~
- Oh, no.

- Put the knife away.

[spanone]

26. K&R

[paparush]

37. As Your Attorney, I advise you to mail me those books IMMEDIATELY

for safekeeping
to preserve for future generations
to keep away from those GODDAMN BATS!

[Leopolds Ghost]

39. Our thread is different.

Our thread is destined to be a classic affirmation...

of everything right and true in the national character...

a gross physical salute
to the fantastic possibilities of life in this country.

But only for those with true grit.

And we are chock full of that, man. Damn right !

My attorney understands this concept, despite his political handicap.


- But do you ? - ( Giggling )


He said he understood, but I could see in his eyes that he didn't.


He was lying to me...

[Leopolds Ghost]

40. On To Super Tuesday? This is too much, man! too much!

Come on, Go into the voting booth.


Take the ticket. Take it.


I need this. Right ?


-- I'll remember your face.


There is no way of explaining the terror I felt.