Team Leader: OK, team, gather! This is the Manifesto meeting. Today we have to work out how to sell our candidate, Mister J, to the selectorate. This is the message they will hear in the campaign! Why should our people choose Mister X? We want a message that will surprise everyone and impress them.
Member A: Mister J? I thought that our party’s candidate in this selection is…
Team Leader: Our candidate – is Almighty God, you mean? Yes, but HE can’t be selected as an official candidate. Gods aren’t allowed to stand as candidates. It’s against the rules. It wouldn’t be a fair vote if one did. For example - how could you possibly decide how much publicity God was allowed?
Member B: Or put his photograph on the election leaflets?
Member C: Or get any other candidate to stand against him?
Team Leader: No, our God – in fact, our man – is standing as Mister J.
Member A: I’m not sure I like that. Mister J for candidate? Too simple. How about Mister E – for a God of mystery?
Team Leader: It’s not our job to remake his image. We aren’t here to create the Creator. We just need to write his manifesto and decide what to put on his campaign leaflets. What can we say about him? What is he going to promise?
Member A: We need to describe his background. You know, man of the people –
Member B: I think he prefers Son of Man.
Member C: I like that. Snappy. And ordinary. He must sound ordinary. Born into an ordinary family, in an ordinary house, works at an ordinary job, understands ordinary people. Voters like that sort of thing.
Team Leader: For ordinary family, read ‘parents married in a hurry’. For house, read ‘a cave full of stinking animals’.
Member A: No, no, no. Voters don’t like eccentrics. We don’t want to make our candidate seem weird. We must sell him as a very ordinary God.
Team Leader: I’m afraid he insists. But the ordinary job is OK. Carpenter - he did that until he started his mission.
Member B: Mission? We don’t want him to sound too dramatic.
Member C: Oh, I don’t know. Conviction politicians are no bad thing.
Team leader: That’s a point. He has a conviction.
Member A: You mean he has a criminal record? That’s bad. We had better keep that quiet. What was it? Shoplifting as a kid?
Team leader: No. Blasphemy and high treason.
Member B: What? We are supposed to sell a candidate who’s been in prison for a major crime?
Team leader: Oh, he didn’t go to prison. He was executed.
Member C: Do you mean to say that our candidate is dead?
Team leader: Oh, not now. It would be illegal to stand as a candidate if you were dead.
Member A: You said we wanted to surprise and impress voters. We’ll surprise them, certainly.
Member B: And impress them, too, if he was dead and is alive.
Member C: I take it there are no other surprises.
Team leader: Er – yes, there is one. If someone chooses him, they have to let him vote FOR them.
Member A: What? Is that legal?
Member B: I think so … if someone can’t write, then they can ask for the ballot paper to be marked for them.
Member C: So he has to mark our ballot papers for us.
Team leader: Exactly.
Member A: Let’s get this straight. His cross will mark our choice.
Team leader: You couldn’t have put it more clearly.
Member B: But what if someone doesn’t want to choose him?
Team leader: If they reject his cross, then they have not chosen him.
Member C: Well, is that really a surprise? But will that really make people choose him?
Team leader: If they want Mister J as their leader, they will have to accept his cross. That’s the message we have to spread. That’s what his selection manifesto has to say to everyone. Now that we have decided that, we can get on with the business of campaigning. So let’s go, team! Mister J may be something of a Mister E, as well. But he’s our man. Tell everyone - choose him!
A, B and C We will!
[George B. Hill. 27/4/2015]