Saturday 8 July 2000
Maty the Hamster writes on the a dropout from the contest


The Hamster For President Campaign Committee nominee list dropped to five with the discovery that one older candidate was less than serious and that he had been actively soliciting support for another potential nominee.

Pikachu, who says he never really wanted to be president, admitted that he had sought votes for his son, Raichu, and that the declaration of his candidacy was merely a plot which he believed would get him walnuts from the GFO. The admission was made at a boisterous press conference yesterday, when a giggling Pikachu complained that no walnuts had come his way 'so why go on pretending?'

He was enthusiastically cheered by hundreds of hamsters who showed up early for the pre-convention partying that goes on for about two weeks before the formal nomination process.

'We want walnuts, we want walnuts' the crowd squeaked, as the chant spread quickly to all corners of the room.

Yarash, who chairs the convention and is backing his son Yarash Jr said that the good humor that attended the revelation says much about the difference between rodent politicians and the traditional human kind. If this had happened among the latter, he pointed out, it would have been considered a major, terrible scandal 'but we hamsters, on the other hand, treated it as a joke and we really enjoyed the whole thing, just enormously. Indeed, there really, truly would be some kind of goofy and expensive investigation if a human politician entered a campaign just to get a fancy meal, but we as a species don't have that obnoxious habit of taking ourselves so seriously'

A hamster administration will be a happy, upbeat experience for the whole country, said another campaign official. Instead of declaring national security emergencies every time some floppy disc disappears, and trying to extend state control into all aspects of life, the hamsters will be happy just to see people and all other critters happy. The official, Amy, who happens to be the grandmother of the youngest candidate seeking office (little Melek), added that hamsters 'would not and could not run an authoritarian kind of system in which freedom is suppressed and people are reduced to fearful, over-cautious drones.

'We are about freedom' said another member of the hamster election team.

Sophie, great great aunt of two prospective nominees (the two brothers Diddley Squat and Yarash Jr), added that hamsters in the White House will set a standard of tolerance and gentleness for the country that no human has ever been able to achieve.

As the laughter died down about Pikachu's motives in declaring himself a candidate, attention turned to the recent purchase of a bag of dried apricots. This reporter has learned that two others seeking the nomination declared their candidacies within two hours of the delicious fruits being purchased by the GFO. Did either of them decide to run in the hopes of getting more than their fair share of apricots? Who would do such a thing? No confessions yet. But I shall catch up with them and ask. Perhaps, then, the race will be among three hamsters instead of five. We soon shall see.

Maty the Hamster doesn't write very often for the Rodent Weekly.
This article appears courtesy of that paper.





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