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Committee hears report on candidate meeting

By Staff | Oct 28, 2010

As the town’s electors enviously gossiped over the latest scandal at the Exelsior roadhouse four miles down County Road 31, Chief Security Officer Garvey Erfald and Josh Dvorchak were busy organizing notes for a report to the Homeland Security Committee about to meet in the chilly community hall.

“Meeting will come to order,” Chairperson Ork Dorken announced loudly. “Garvey and Josh are ready to report on their surveillance of the candidates meeting at the courthouse last Thursday.”

“Well, this so-called County Voter’s Information meeting was held to give everyone in the county a chance to meet the candidates,” Garvey started, “but all of the county voters didn’t come.”

“Interest in democracy is at a new low,” interjected Josh.

“Did you spot many terrorists there?” asked a dubious Holger Danske.

“I read up on the candidates and half of them fit the bill, at least if they were in office,” Old Sievert ventured.

“The first candidate to talk was a guy from Carpenter running for county commissioner,” Garvey reported. “He promised to end the war in Afghanistan.” The electors cheered.

“He said he didn’t have a specific plan yet, but guts and courage would do the job,” Josh added. The electors booed.

“Then a farmer got up and wanted to know if the county commission would support federal disaster relief for farmers whose wheat ran less than 50 bushels to the acre,” Garvey recounted. “The commissioner candidates agreed that would be their top priority as soon as they balanced the national budget and repaired the bridge in Dunsforth township.

Garvey continued. “Then some lady from Broadview got up and demanded that the county home extension agent be voted on in the next election.”

“The county clerk opposed the idea, said we already had too many offices to vote for, some not as important as the home extension agent but that’s the way it was,” Josh explained.

“She was mad about a brownie recipe that Lucy put in her weekly column,” Garvey noted. “It had an error too much baking powder, I think – and the brownies were not fit for man or beast so she gave them to her dog and he died two days later.”

“As you know,” Garvey continued, “Deadshot Dooter is running against Sheriff Stall because the sheriff gave him a ticket for running over Glory Dinkins’ fancy chickens.”

“What did Deadshot promise the voters?” asked Jimmy.

“Well, he promised to get guns for everybody in the county and form a county militia to fight terrorists. There would be full order drill on the courthouse square every Saturday for everybody over 16, women included.”

“That would put us on red alert for sure,” Little Jimmy surmised.

“How’s he gonna keep people from shooting each other when they got mad?” asked Holger.

“He said church attendance would be compulsory so everybody would have Christian love in their hearts but they would still need guns in case that didn’t work,” Josh explained.

Madeleine Morgan stood up, so mad her left ear twitched.

“I say we don’t vote for candidates anymore,” she said angrily. “It only encourages them.”

That sounded so conclusive that everyone headed for the door.

Omdahl is a UND professor emeritus in political science and a former lieutenant governor of North Dakota.