They Don'T GoT Mike
Casual They Don't Got Mike Exactly four years ago in this space, I documented the failed campaign of my former brother-in-law, Mike Benton, whom the enemies of freedom decided not to make clerk of...
...Though he long ago quit being married to my sister-in-law, Mike's no quitter...
...Over plates of quesadillas and crab nachos, the bad news drops...
...While other candidates are addicted to alliterative exclamations (Wells Works...
...Now it sounds as if someone has made a citizen's arrest and is waiting for the police to arrive...
...Definitely Dixie...
...It's a play on the "Got Milk...
...This cycle, he's answering his true calling: that of county commissioner...
...He doesn't understand why do-nothing incumbents are steering our county to ruin...
...Either way, he tells me he's already crafted an amended slogan: "'You didn't Get Mike last time, but you Got Mike this time.' Do you think it needs some work...
...He works people like a grease gun, lunging at Democratic campaign workers (he's a Republican), hugging old women (his only previous electoral success was winning Northern High's Best Looking in 1984), putting the squeeze on everyone from colleagues to old high school pals to doting cousins, one of whom, Boo Boo, struggles when I ask her to tell me a good story about Mike from his youth...
...I don't understand," he says, "how three grown men can eat two whole boxes of donuts...
...He meets people and ingests them like toasted-coconut donuts...
...Kevin is both a human Google map and the glue that holds the campaign together, earning him the nickname G2...
...When we were both setting standards of academic excellence in our community college human sexuality course, he let me crib his copious notes on the Grafenberg spot, which I've kept (laminated) to this day...
...He went to a four-day candidate school in Gaith-ersburg...
...he says...
...He has wall charts next to his "Girls of Maxim" calendar that keep straight his meet'n'greets...
...I could chew through this wall," he says...
...I could tell you about the time he drank too much and ran stark naked through the bushes...
...I deserved it, Ooh-rah...
...If I behaved like this without the campaign, they'd lock you up or think you're Forrest Gump or something...
...At least we beat (11th place) Doug Parran like the village conga...
...At least when I'm running, I have an excuse...
...He loves talking to strangers, he confesses of his compulsion...
...This time, Mike, G2, and I have to make do with Dunkin Donuts in the back of G2's SUV...
...He has a campaign manager, a body man, and a driver, even if they're all the same person: Kevin Turner, a real-estate colleague of Mike's...
...Since the last time, when just the two of us went campaigning, Mike's gone a bit corporate...
...Matt Labash...
...So it's small surprise that, as I stand shivering on the side of Route 4 and Mike waves to voters as he's done nearly every morning for the last month-and-a-half, he's not wearing gloves...
...No time for lunch, stay focused Matt," Mike says, informing me that we'll be hitting all 23 polling stations—twice...
...Last Election Day, we took leisurely breaks for crab cakes and light refreshments...
...There are five seats for commissioner, and with 100 percent of returns in, Mike finishes ninth out of eleven...
...Mike has gone a different direction with his omnipresent "Got Mike" signs...
...Casual They Don't Got Mike Exactly four years ago in this space, I documented the failed campaign of my former brother-in-law, Mike Benton, whom the enemies of freedom decided not to make clerk of the circuit court of Calvert County, Maryland...
...He doesn't understand how so much effort yielded so little result...
...ad campaign, though I point out to Mike that he botched it by dropping the question mark...
...I tell him to look on the bright side...
...He waves me off: "I'm not a question, I'm the answer...
...He has 40 volunteers working polling stations...
...I owed him ink for an old favor...
...I need to keep my fingers free for when they flip me off," the now-seasoned campaigner explains...
...G2 nervously sets up his laptop in the back, waiting for returns...
...Like most politicians, Mike is an optimist, listening to Zig Ziglar and Tony Robbins tapes in the car...
...Or Mike either...
...Go Gracie...
...Mike is a man with a fever...
...He has secured real estate listings and dates at funerals ("Her boyfriend died," he says defensively, "I felt sorry for her...
...But you can't keep a good man down...
...The next day he is still shell-shocked...
...I need a beer," he says...
...So he'll be back, maybe as commissioner, maybe as something sexier, like Judge of the Orphan's Court...
...A bit of a tough guy, Mike's a former Marine who used to greet even women with friendly head butts, and who was once himself knocked unconscious by his drill instructor for not removing his hat at a urinal...
...Our fieldwork done, we adjourn to Mike's regular watering hole, Robert's in Prince Frederick...
...I withdraw the objection...
...But that was only five years ago...
Vol. 12 • November 2006 • No. 10
