(Two Democratic Party campaign workers discuss the presidential campaign. What the audience doesn’t know is the one they’re talking about is 1864 — Lincoln vs. McClellan.)

ONE: The man is a buffoon. I don’t know how he got elected in the first place.

TWO: Doesn’t matter. He’s president now. Deal with it.

ONE: Damn third party candidates. The Democrats should have won – could have won.

TWO: Well, we didn’t. We just need to make sure we win this election.

ONE: I don’t know what people see in him. Do you?

TWO: He’s plainspoken. People feel he’s one of them.

ONE: He’s an idiot.

TWO: I’m just telling you what the polls show.

(Three enters.)

THREE: All right, people, listen up. We need a campaign plan from here through Election Day. Whaddya got?

TWO: We’ve gone over all the polls. We’ve identified a list of the key swing states -- the usual places. Ohio, Pennsylvania. There’s also some strong antiwar sentiment out in the Upper Midwest -- Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, those ought to be Democratic states.

ONE: He’s gonna play up that whole wartime president thing from now until November. It just makes me sick.

THREE: We can neutralize him on the war issue, trust me.

ONE: How? He’s going to wrap himself in the flag between now and November everytime we turn around.

TWO: The polls do show Democrats have problem on security issues. The Republicans are seen as the party of strength, the Democrats are seen as soft.

THREE: Granted, that’s a problem, I won’t dispute that.

TWO:– you know what a wimp that last Democratic president was.

THREE: That’s why we should be glad we nominated the candidate we did. Every time the Republicans talk about their guy being a wartime president, all we have to do is point out our man’s military record. Do you know what the president’s actual military service record is? it’s like this – it’s nothing. Nada. Zip. Our man’s got a chest full of medals. If the Republicans want to talk about war, we’ll talk about war, all right.

TWO: We’ve got to be careful, though. This election is going to be at the mercy of events more than anytime in history of the republic. We don’t know how the public’s going to react if there’s another attack on Washington.

ONE: Or the fields of Pennylvania.

TWO: Or the fields of Pennsylavania.

THREE: There are other issues besides the war. The economy’s going to hell –

TWO: And civil liberties. This administration has trampled on civil liberties worse than any other administration in the history of the republic.

ONE: You’re wrong. There’s only one issue here. The war’s the issue.. And you know what makes me so mad? This whole war was avoidable. It could have been handled diplomatically.

TWO: This administration doesn’t believe in diplomacy. They’re hard-liners, every one of them.

ONE: And that’s what we should run on. The country’s fed up. Every day brings more casulaties, it seems. And for what?

TWO: Liberation. That’s the term they’ll use. They’ll talk about how they’ve liberated people from tyranny. We need to figure out a way to counter that.

ONE: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Liberation’s a good thing, I guess. Except there’s no end in sight to this. How are we going to get out of this mess? We’re talking years of occupation. Years.

TWO: Not to mention the cost of reconstruction. We’re talking millions there.

THREE: OK, people, back on point. Swing states. What we got? Let’s do the big ones first. Pennsylvania?

TWO: Pennsylvania: Leaning to Lincoln.

ONE: That’s gonna be a tough one to crack.

THREE: New Jersey?

TWO: New Jersey? Leaning McClellan.

THREE: OK. That’s good. We can work with that. Let’s see, Illinois. We know how Illinois will go. How about Ohio?

(Lights out.)

------ THE END --------

Dwayne Yancey

1791 Mount Pleasant Church Road

Fincastle, VA 24090

E-mail: dwayneyancey@yahoo.com