The Anatomy of Winning Elections

The Congressional election in Minnesota’s 8th district features a rematch from two years ago, the, now, incumbent Rick Nolan (DFL) and his Republican challenger, Stewart Mills.

The same candidates, discussing the same issues, in order to represent the same geographic area.  If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over again and expecting a different result, those holding out hope for a Stewart Mills victory may benefit from seeking out a good psychopharmacologist.    

However, don’t place that mail order for your lithium prescription just yet.   For the wily Stewart Mills has endeavored to shake this redux election to its core.  

The man once referred to as the ”Brad Pitt of the Republican Party” ….

… has cut his hair.  

Kudos to Mills though for giving the voters the 'change' they claim to be calling for.  And kudos for giving us a controlled test at that.  Everything is identical about this election, except for this one variable – the length of one of the candidate’s hair.   Finally, we can test the effect of hair on electoral outcomes, under laboratory conditions.  

After this, here’s to methodically moving down the human body and testing one anatomical feature at a time, and we can finally engineer the perfect candidate.  

UPDATE:  Disturbing news out of the Rick Nolan campaign.  After consulting with his senior campaign advisers, Rick Nolan is debuting his new campaign ad tomorrow featuring this look:  

  

Well that certainly confuses the issue.  Why does Rick Nolan hate science?

UPDATE:  According to inside sources, Stewart Mills will not let this bold challenge go unanswered.  At a hastily called press conference at 12 noon tomorrow in front of the Great Clips on Miller Trunk Highway in Duluth, Mills plans to reestablish his advantage.  

  

Your move, Rick Nolan. 

False Advertising

By now, just about everyone in Minnesota has seen the vicious attack ad against Steward Mills. The ads suggest that Mills is a pretty boy heir to his family's fortune. They charge that Mills favors tax breaks for his rich buddies while supporting tax increases for lower income families.

The ad features Mills sailing on his yacht and grilling lobster tails and playing with his hair. This is defamatory. First of all Mills is on a boat far too small for someone of his wealth. The most falsified part of the ad, though, is the way Mills grills his lobsters. They are just sitting there on the grill.

As a fellow rich guy who loves fine dining that the common people can't afford, I know a little something about grilling lobsters. The key to great grilled lobster is the marinade. Butter or olive oil provides a fatty liquid base, and lemon juice and spices really bring out the flavor of the succulent lobster meat. In order to for the marinade to work, the lobster needs to be freed from inside the shell. This is accomplished by splitting the shell down the middle lengthwise, then pulling the lobster out, until only the end closest to the tail remains inside the shell. The meat is then set "piggyback" on top of the shell. Here is a youtube video showing how it is done.

The advantage of this approach is twofold. As mentioned above, it makes the lobster meat accessible so that one can add the marinade. The other advantage of this approach is that it moves the meat further from the heat source, allowing it to cook more slowly, preventing scalding and producing succulent meat that melts in your mouth.

One wonders where the people running this ad got their recipe for cooking lobster. I'd say if there is a millionaire department store heir too dumb to know how to correctly grill a lobster it is much more likely to be Governor Mark Dayton. And he doesn't even have nice hair.