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Not a lot of people know this, but I was a political science major for four years during college. It's for obvious reasons that I don't mention this to people I meet here in Chicago, but the truth of the matter is that I enjoyed it quite a bit. The academia, I mean. The classes. I loved sitting in policy classes, hammering out the details of how America was going to deal with this issue of apartheid. I would get all caught up in theory classes, endlessly debating with my professors about whether the entire character of American culture and history makes it impossible for us to have anything but a two-party system. I would thrill in my history classes to stories of last-minute alliances, truces, agreed to with a handshake in a smoky back room at some convention center in Chicago at the turn of the century.

I was going to be a politician. No, really. I've always had a certain gift for being able to look at a problem and rather quickly devising a simple, elegant and proactive solution. I was going to take this gift and I was going to run for office, and I was going to win. I was going to enact solutions to problems, and they would work, and I was going to be rewarded for it, and eventually rise my way to a position of power and esteem in the hallowed halls of the U.S. Capitol building.

And then, I switched my major to fine-art photography.

And now that I stop and think about it, I realize that I may have never told a single person in my life besides Gennifer Biggs, my ex-girlfriend, why I switched majors. But I've been asked to write a political story for tonight, and they do say exorcism is good for the soul. So here following is the story of why I am no longer a budding politician.

It was my junior year, and I was involved with my first-ever real election, which in actuality was just for the Presidency of our school's student government, but was nonetheless a huge race on our campus because A) unlike other schools, our President had some actual enforceable powers upon the student population, however limited they may be, and B) our student government gives away approximately $300,000 every year to student groups, and the President and Vice President hold a large sway over exactly which groups were going to get exactly which cut. It always boils down to money, doesn't it? But that's another discussion for another time.

Now, the more astute of you may already be saying to yourselves, "Jason, if it took you three years of Poli Sci classes before you ever got involved with an actual election, maybe you should have taken that as writing on the wall." And you're right, I should have. But I plead the same amendment that we all plead when, later in life, we are trying to explain to our friends statements we have made in our youth, like, "Well, she loves me and I love her and you're an asshole if you think we have a problem and I need to break up with her" and "Bauhaus is just the most absolute greatest band in the history of music and I can't imagine a time where I'll ever like a band more than them" and "This job's different, 'cause the manager's really cool and the company really cares about me and no one acts like an asshole and they're giving me a week of paid vacation!"

Brian was our Presidential candidate. He was a policy wonk, and was respected and well-liked among the student government crowd, despite his well-known, almost public affection for exotic and rare breeds of chemical amphetamines, and his lesser-known but still known belief that he had been abducted by a UFO in 1986 and now has a 48-hour period of his life missing where presumably he was touring the stars unconsciously, being poked and prodded and painted orange across the entire left side of his body.

Bob was our Vice Presidential candidate. He was a squeaky-clean kid, who possessed a certain Dobie Gillisness about him that was impossible to resist when you met him. Bob was really good at math, which of course was a requirement of all Vice Presidential candidates for the Missouri Student Association -- the veep, of course, being in charge of balancing the MSA budget each year. Bob had recently been introduced to the strange phenomenon we like to called 'marijuana,' and had just made the decision to grow his hair out and start wearing on of those plastic peace-sign necklaces that were so popular in the late '80s.

Sean was the campaign manager. Political management had been Sean's dream as long as he could remember. This was the sixth campaign Sean had worked on since he was 16. Sean always spoke in metaphors of violence:

It's time to drop the axe!

Oh, we're really getting slaughtered!

I've been getting fucked up the ass all day!

Heads are going to roll!

Sean was the first person my age I ever knew to grow a flower garden. He would tend to it lovingly, sometimes sit for an hour or more and just stare and smell and get lost. Then he would get up, go inside his apartment, call the student newspaper and leak some detail about one of our opponents to them, some detail that was so horrifyingly personal, so embarrassing, that I could scarcely believe it was real.

And despite all of what I've said, Brian and Bob were the hands-down favorites among five slates of candidates to win this year's election. That was the first sign.

The second sign was this strange little character named Matt, a freshman who nobody knew but who had enthusiastically signed on to do grunt work for the campaign. Matt was caught one night about halfway through the campaign, running around his dorm at three in the morning, ripping down all of our opponents' flyers. When first approached by a Resident Assistant, Matt's first reaction, naturally, was to run. When caught and pressed for his name, Matt answered with an unequivocal "FUCK YOU!" When pressed further, he stated in no uncertain terms that he was working for one of Brian and Bob's opponents, and that he had been hired by them to rip down everyone else's posters.

Naturally, this made it into the student paper. Naturally, said opponents declared, "We don't know who the hell this jerk is." Naturally, the truth came out. And naturally, Brian had to make a public apology to his opponents, make a spectacle out of firing Matt from the campaign and avow to everyone he met that he really did believe in a fair, civil election and that the actions of one of his staff did not necessarily reflect the candidate.

"Don't worry about it," Sean said. "It happens all the time. You can't be personally responsible for every person who wants you elected."

"But he seemed so normal," I said. "And... I don't know, boring. How can you tell?"

Sean just shrugged. "Jason, let me tell you something, and I don't want you to ever forget it." He leaned in close to me and whispered, "There are a lot of fuckin' nutcases involved in politics." And you know what? I never have forgotten it.

The last thing was what turned into the catalyst, the straw that broke the camel's back, the event that lost Brian and Bob the election -- the incident now known as "The Great Date Rape Fiasco of 1989."

It was at one of the government sponsored Presidential debates, horrible things that were always held in un-air conditioned rooms and would last for two or three hours because of the fact that there were five candidates up on stage. We were, in fact, two hours into this one, and we were all sweaty and uncomfortable and our asses were all sore from the creakety wooden chairs we were forced to sit in.

A representative from a campus women's group had just asked the candidates what they were prepared to do to combat the recently rising wave of date rape on campus. Later, Brian would admit to me that he, as well as us that night, was also sweaty and uncomfortable and sore and he had had just about enough of listening to two hours of candidates standing up for every fucking question and saying,

"Wellthat'saveryimportantissueandasPresidentIwouldformacommitteetoresearchthematterandcomeupwithaviablesolution."

This, he claimed, is why he stood up that night and said, "Frankly, date rapers make me sick. And when I'm President, I'll lobby the Board of Curators to enact a by-law automatically expelling any student convicted of date rape."

A hasty meeting was assembled after the debate. "Are you fuckin' NUTS!" Sean yelled at Brian.

"What?"

"Are you committing suicide? Is that what you're doing right in front of us? That's what you're doing, aren't you?"

"Oh, for God's sake, Sean, I was trying to liven things up a little. I thought I was going to spontaneously turn into liquid form if I had to sit up there another minute."

"Brian," Sean said, "let me explain something to you. We have a pool of 20,000 eligible voters in this election. Out of those 20,000 voters, 10,000 are members of a fraternity. These are guys who make a living out of date rape. It's an art form over in Greektown. There are techniques. There are scorecards. Date rape is seen by half of your voters as not only a fun weekend hobby, but an essential part of the college experience!"

"Well shit, Sean, fuck them," Brian said. "I was telling the truth. Date rapers really do make me sick. Hey, I have a strong opinion about this, and I'm not going to apologize for it."

Sean sighed. "Brian, I had you all wrong. when you decided to run for office, I assumed that you knew the one basic tenet that rules all campaigns. Obviously you don't. So I'm going to explain it to you, right now, and if you want to have the least fucking chance of ever getting elected, you will shut up and listen.

"You no longer have any opinions, okay? You are a public servant. Well, a potential public servant. Opinion is a luxury for the civilian class, not you. You no longer feel strongly about anything. ANYTHING. You think people want to elect someone who feels strongly about something? Un-unh. Opinions frighten people, Brian. Opinions imply that someone's going got get in there and do something. And people don't want that. Well, you want that, and I do, and all our intelligent, free-thinking friends do, but do you think for one minute that they're the ones who elect you?

"Is this sinking in, Brian? Lowest common denominator. The longest-running TV shows are the ones that manage to be as bland as unbuttered toast and offend the least amount of people. And the best-selling albums. And our most beloved politicians."

Sean took a deep breath, sat down, stole one of my cigarettes and lit up. "Now here's what you're gonna do, Brian. Tomorrow you're gonna get up and make a statement to the student paper that you... that you are very emotional over this issue. I don't know, your ex-girlfriend once got date-raped. No, no, your sister, that's better. You let your emotions get away from you last night. Of course you couldn't really enact legislation barring students of their constitutional right of getting an education despite their past criminal records. It was just an example of how strongly you feel about this issue. And when elected President, you will definitely form a committee to look into how to best prevent date rape, before it happens." Sean ashed his cigarette. "And we'll hope that this country's tendency to forget everything five minutes after they hear it will work to our advantage this time."

That night, I quit the campaign. And three months later, I switched my major.

Brian and Bob lost, of course -- Sean was completely right. I would sit in the student union and overhear conversations between two frat guys in the booth next to me -- "You hear one of the candidates wants to expel anybody caught date raping? Shit, dude, half those bitches just yell 'rape' 'cause they got pregnant and they don't want their daddies to know they're spreading it wide open for half the campus every Saturday night. And he wants to kick me out for that? Fuck him, dude."

The guys who had been running in second place eventually won the election, two frat guys who would readily admit to anyone that they didn't really want the job but thought it would look good on their resumes. Their fraternity had made the decision to supply the $10,000 the candidates spent on the campaign, mostly because they thought it would be 'kick ass' to have two guys from their house running the government.

The candidates also readily admitted that they believed the main reason they had been in second place to begin with was because their last names, put together, rhymed with the phrase "Bartles and Jaymes," which in case you are too young to remember, was the most popular brand of recreational liquor of the 1980's. In fact, "Bartles and Jaymes" became their campaign slogan, and people were so tickled by it that it got them voted right into office.

And now, like Animal House, another story of college hijinx, I will neatly wrap up the eventual fates of our characters:

Brian eventually switched his major to music engineering and now lives in Florida and produces rap albums.

The last time we heard from Bob, he was quitting school to join a commune in Oregon that grows hemp during the spring and follows the Grateful Dead every summer. Now that the Grateful Dead have broken up, God only knows what's happened to him.

Sean, as you have already probably guessed, is the Kansas City chairman of the Committee to Re-Elect Bill Clinton.

Bartles and Jaymes increased the Homecoming Steering Committee budget by $10,000 that year, which made their constituents very happy -- especially their house, which won the annual Homecoming competition for the first time in 57 years. They also drew up plans for a new intramural league of beach volleyball, which thrives on campus to this day and has become the lasting legacy of their Presidential tenure. Bartles is now a state representative. I don't know what happened to Jaymes, but if he lived in Chicago, I'm certain he'd be my boss.

And me? I'm a writer now -- a teller of tales. On election years, when I've had too much to drink, I partake of my now very private but still enjoyable habit of debating policy and devising simple, elegant solutions to problems. Without actually ever stating the reasons, I make it clear to my friends that I will not actively work on getting someone elected, nor will I actively protest against someone trying to get elected. And sometimes, late at night and by myself, I think back to that night that I told this whole story to Gennifer Biggs, and I think about how she held me in her arms and gently rocked me while I cried and said to me, "You know, Jason, politics is an ugly business. Why don't you try an art class? I really think it would suit you better." And I think -- she was right. God, she was so right.