Koppelmeister's Bid For Governor

     Since March 15 when Koppelmeister announced his candidacy for Governor Of Iowa, the normal mainstream candidates reacted with little charity. Republican Candidates David Omen and Paul Pate laughed until apoplectic at an appearance in Zoar. Republican front runner, Jim Ross Lightfoot supposedly referred to Koppelmeister as an angst-spitting baboon---that was a dead on the money appraisal in my opinion. And both democrats shurgged their shoulders and wished Koppelmeister would run as a Republican. Hell, even the mainstream media has been all too happy to ignore him as a babbling nut case torqued up on Ibogaine who escaped from Massaraty Asylum. Even in Mentor, which Koppelmeister annexed into his Maple Avenue Reich due to voter apathy (see: Nazi Enthusiast Annexes Small Town, November, 1996, vol. 3, Issue #11), the voters here think he's an embarrassment but are powerless to do anything about him.

     "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance," bemoaned former Mentor Mayor, Marvin Kelly to me that morning over some coffee and eggs at Johnson's Diner. "But he caught us napping."

     Eddie Johnson owns the diner and he doesn't welcome any of Koppelmeister's crowd; he burns their food or puts dish soap in it and if they complain they get the sharp smack of wet dishrag across the cheek. Saturday mornings, the place is usually full of Kelly's cronies grumbling into their coffee about what they could have done to avoid what happened. When Mayor Kelly hears this, he shakes his head as if in pain, "They're great guys but they just don't do anything anymore."

     "Koppelmeister does," I observed. "He gets things done."

     "Whose side you on, anyway?" he snorted. "Yep, he's sure made a big impression. Had some Federal Marshals poke around here after that business with that MacLaren guy and the Republic Of Texas blew up in his face. That's not the innovative thinking Iowans want in a Governor." (see: Greater Maple Avenue Reich Offered Support To Republic Of Texas, May, 1997, vol. 4, Issue #5).

     But Koppelmeister has the firm unshakable belief that he will win the hearts and minds of the common Iowan. Sure, it's hard to tell if he is a certifiably deluded nut or an incredibly driven man; politicians are often both. That's just the nature of the beast in this game. But Koppelmeister has a following nevertheless; a dangerous following of privacy freaks and gun-wielding conspiracy theorists who have become the backbone of his electorate. If handled correctly, they pose a serious upset to the 30 year Republican lock on the Iowa Governor's chair and threaten to split the conservative vote. The Republicans would offer Koppelmeister an administration job for his endorsement. He could smell it then, like blood on hot asphalt and one way or another, we'd have 1931 Berlin out here again.

     It could have been in the cards. Koppelmeister saw a chance to cement an alliance with the Iowa Chapter of The Men Of Freedom Militia group. For an ideologue of Koppelmeister's caliber, it was a bold move---as bold as Nixon going to China. But when a sparsely attended speech at Georg von Podebrad College arranged through the GvP Students for Koppelmeister organization deteriorated into an ugly slugfest when two beer-soaked students chased Koppelmeister from the stage, the dream began to unravel.

     Though negligible damage, McPherson spun it out into a conspiracy theory from well beyond The Zone of The Weird and put it out as a press release. By noon, all over the state, newsroom fax machines had spat out a fifty page packet of raw brain sewage labeling the GvP students as "Minnesotan thugs" and quoting excerpts of the secret manure spill agenda from The Protocols of the Elders of Duluth.

     The meeting with the Iowa Men of Freedom President, Charlie Hotz, later that day in the Zoar Regent Hotel Lobby held the bitterest disappointment. Feverish distrust between the two men's staff ran so high that nobody would sit down. And when Gorman recklessly speculated aloud that Charlie Hotz was a government stooge, the meeting collapsed into a barrage of poisonous accusations. When the first punch got thrown, Koppelmeister vanished from the fray. McPherson was maced and hurled through a plate glass window into the hotel restaurant.

     "Just look at this!" Heim whined, holding a sheaf of newly printed official Ministry stationary under McPherson's spotty nose. "This smacks of treachery!"

     As McPherson examined the stationary, a grin spread across his face. "The Supreme Leader does hope to stimulate growth," he sniggered.

     Heim angrily slapped the sheaf of papers across McPherson's chest, sending the papers fluttering into the wind. By chance I snatched one from the air. It read in bold official block print: "Joel Heim, Ministry of People's Enlargement".

     "I see Ms Gorman's bulimic hand in this!" Heim hooted.

     At that, McPherson introduced me as a reporter. Heim immediately reined in his anger over the misprinted stationary, suddenly transforming himself into smiles and sunshine with startling smoothness.

     "Yes, the rally," he said, darting a malicious stare briefly at McPherson. "It's going to be a decisive morale boosting event for the National Socialist Maple Avenue Workers' Party."

     "God knows we need it," Alice Gorman spat a she emerged from front door of the Office Annex. She was an attractive, athletic-looking woman in her thirties, but as she drew near I caught the stink of vomit about her and saw the damp blotches on her suit jacket's lapel. She fidgeted with a cigarette as she looked at me, "I was led to expect the press were coming."

     McPherson said nothing but smiled a smile that suggested injections and a length of rubber hose.

     Gorman lit her cigarette and took a long imperious drag. "Munchkin-shit," she said under her breath.

     Heim immediately launched into his patter again about the rally, with Gorman and McPherson eventually managing to make the appropriate positive noises. A grayish-silver minivan pulled up and we all piled in and head off to the rally.

     The rally, as it turned out, was at the site of the former Substance Rehabilitation Summer Interment Camp (see: Greater Maple Avenue Reich Opens Summer Concentration Camp, August, 1997, vol. 4, Issue #8) which had been recently re-titled as a "Management Retreat Facility" in spite of the razorwire-topped fence. Roughly 50 people gathered to welcome their Supreme Leader, who was stopping in Mentor to whip his faithful followers into a frenzy. I sort of thought these people should have been wearing some kind of thought-control device. But they looked like all other wide-eyed believers at rallies; all wanting that same moment of electric contact with the person who can make the world better for them. And that commonalty was the most frightening thing of all.

     After a few minutes, a truck belonging to tree surgeon Stan McPherson, Skip's father and Koppelmeister supporter, pulled up into the compound followed by a Teutonic black and chrome '69 Mercedes Benz. As the sparse throng burst into cheers, Werner Koppelmeister emerged from the back of the car. Carefully making sure he didn't soil his trademark brown sport coat and black trousers, he climbed with some agility into the cherry picker of the tree surgeon's truck. An instant later, the machine hoisted him into position over the crowd and jerked to a stop.

     I scanned the audience around me and saw the dark venomous glances flitting amongst the Gorman-McPherson-Heim trio standing at the base of the truck like a nest of adders. I thought of Reich Superintendent of Public Security Wilt Garner's suicide and the explosion that leveled the old governmental office annex and injured Koppelmeister himself (see: Blast Seen As Attempt On Koppelmeister's Life, October, 1997, vol. 4, Issue #10).

     Up in his perch, Koppelmeister said nothing. He didn't even look at down at the audience. Posed dramatically in the basket, his hands gripping the top of its rail, he stared off into the distance. Below, music swelled from a pair of big speakers in the open trunk of rusted blue Olds Cutlass. The crowd cheered---and from what I could tell, I think the cheers were "sweetened" by a recording of another rally being played from another enormous car stereo stuffed inside a tan Ford Escort.

     "Iowa is Koppelmeister," he suddenly shouted above the din, smacking his chest with a clenched fist. The shouting ceased and the music faded as his steely gaze swept over enraptured faces. "And," he sshouted again, lifting his gaze once more to what ever far away point he had been scrutinizing, "Koppelmeister is Iowa!"