“The key problem with my campaign was that I didn’t appear completely crazy,” said Republican Presidential candidate Jon Huntsman at a press conference yesterday. The former governor of Utah and ambassador to China rode a pink unicorn on stage and had painted his face in a sickly combination of black and white to resemble a zombie.
“Newt, Perry, Bachmann – they all seem poised to demolish civilization as we know it and send the world into a never-ending nuclear holocaust with their awe-inspiring levels of stupidity and insanity,” said Huntsman. “That’s why they were so far ahead of me in the polls.”
Reports surfaced earlier this week that Huntsman had embarked on a new campaign strategy in an effort to boost his popularity. Huntsman has been trailing throughout the campaign season, with support rarely higher than 1% among Republican voters.
“I’ve settled on a new slogan for my campaign: I was born this way,” continued Huntsman. “And when I say that, I mean that I was born a straight Christian, of course.”
“Here I was with positions that actually sounded halfway reasonable. For God’s sake, I actually said that I believed the entire scientific community about global warming. So I scratched my head,” said Huntsman, who scratched his head to reveal that it had been shaved and painted to resemble an exposed brain, “and I thought, why am I losing so badly? Then I realized the problem – I appeared remotely sane. So I dropped all the substance from my campaign and turned to Lady Gaga.”
At this point, Huntsman threw open his tuxedo, revealing a red leather nun outfit underneath. Donning a white cornette, Huntsman performed an elaborate dance across the stage, using the podium as a pole and repeating “Rah rah ah-ah-ah/Gaga oh-la-la!”
The response was mixed. “I’m still supporting Gingrich,” said one Republican voter. “It all seems like a stunt. I don’t buy that Huntsman is actually this crazy. Newt, on the other hand – he’s genuinely an opportunistic, egotistic, sociopathic moron.”
“Dancing zombie nun or not,” said another voter, “I’m still for Rick Perry. Of course his ideas are ludicrous, but I can hardly believe that he’s even sober half the time he’s talking.”
“I’m still voting for us,” said Rick Perry.
But Huntsman’s poll numbers have risen dramatically. “Just remember, don’t be a drag – just be a queen,” said Huntsman at the end of the conference. “Honestly, I have absolutely no idea what that means,” he added.
A music video of Huntsman’s dance routine has already reached eighty million views on Youtube. The success of the strategy has inspired other candidates – early reports indicate that Mitt Romney will soon be releasing a video cover of Sexy and I Know It.

A new poll released this week by Quinnipiac University shows that Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum still holds a strong lead among voters named Rick Santorum.

The poll showed that while most major categories of likely voters, including white males, women over 30, non-white males, and women under 30, did not support the Santorum, voters named Rick Santorum are effectively unanimous in their support of the former senator.

According to political analyst Sean Hannity, “This poll shows that Santorum’s ideas don’t appeal to a very broad audience… but to people named Rick Santorum, not only is Santorum the best candidate, he is the only candidate. These people [named Rick Santorum] just don’t trust any other candidate to represent them in government.”

Santorum’s campaign has been showing signs of weakness after several poor performances in primary debates, but Santorum says that as long as his core group of supporters remains steadfast, he will continue his push for the White House.
Says Santorum, “I’m not going to give up. Just because my supporters are in the minority does not mean that our voice should not be heard. I will stay in this race to make sure that the things people named Rick Santorum care about continue to be important issues in this race.”

The consistent support Santorum receives from these voters has baffled many pundits in recent weeks. Bill O’Reilly tried to make sense of the data on his show last night.
“Voters named Rick Santorum are reactionary and intolerant. They hate immigrants almost as much as they hate gay people, and they are generally out of place in educated conversations. So it is natural that they would identify so strongly with Santorum. He is the embodiment of all the things that they, and only they, care about.”

This same poll from Quinnipiac showed that Rick Perry has lost significant support from voters named Rick Perry in recent weeks. The Governor of Texas is currently running second in this category to Mitt Romney.

God, creator of the universe and omnipotent ruler of all that is, was, and ever shall be, saw fit to reward the city of Raleigh, North Carolina with unseasonably warm weather this weekend.
God has long been known to show his favor or distaste for a given area using only the weather. In the past, God has used hurricanes to show his anger at New Orleans, an earthquake to show his hatred for the East coast, and constant rain to show his disappointment with England.
This weekend, however, was a pleasant change of pace for God, who is usually seen only showing anger with the weather. In this case, God was instead rewarding all the wonderful people of Raleigh for their many good deeds.
The weekend began with a bright and sunny Friday, and temperatures stayed in the low seventies all day. Typically, Raleigh will have slightly lower temperatures around this time of year, but, somehow, the weather remained warm and sunny all the way through until the end of the day on Sunday. There was no precipitation anywhere in the Raleigh area for the entire weekend.
Preacher and meteorologist Pat Robertson often offers his interpretations of these weather-based signs from God. He told The Slant, “We all remember when God sent that earthquake to tell us how angry he was over centuries of hedonism in Haiti… well, apparently God is now trying to tell us that he feels pretty good about whatever has been going on in Raleigh for the past few days.”

Many have come forward to speculate about why, specifically, God has decided to favor Raleigh recently. Kevin O’Leary lives in Raleigh and says that his wife, Mary, “…has been volunteering down at the soup kitchen every weekend for years now. It’s nice to see God finally reward her by making it slightly warmer in our town.”

The Union of Raleigh-Durham Religious Leaders released a statement this past Tuesday thanking God for the nice weather. Their statistics indicate that over 30,000 people attended religious services in Raleigh this past weekend, and that over 1 million good deeds have been logged in the area just in the past two weeks.

The URDLR says, “We are very grateful that God has finally recognized all the good things we do…and some nice weather was a great way to do it. We’d like to encourage everyone to continue their efforts to be better people and hope that God will reward us by giving us good traveling weather on Thanksgiving.”

Despite these statistics, some skeptics have come out questioning God’s judgement in this instance. Officer Marty Janowski is a police officer in Raleigh, and he says that he’s seen some horrible things that would certainly not deserve good weather.
“Last week, I saw three different people steal candy from three different babies! And now I hear that God is casting his warm embrace upon these people? It’s disgusting.”

The Slant tried to reach God for a comment on these questions, but the ruler of the universe simply responded to our email by sending twenty minutes of snow flurries to Ontario, Canada.
Slant theometeorologists have yet to interpret this action.

While Raleigh residents are happy to think of themselves as being part of God’s chosen people, they remain jealous of Honolulu, Hawaii. God has consistently shown favor for the island by granting them continuously good weather for the past several centuries.

Last night at 9:37 PM EST a tweet was tweeted.
Sources confirm that the tweet was created by Twitter user Marissa DelRio, who had been spending the day with her mother and stepfather.
Marissa’s mother, Suge Greene, said she was very excited that her daughter had once again used this fantastic social networking tool.
“When I heard about Marissa’s tweet, I was just ecstatic. My daughter is now part of the world’s biggest real time information network. I’m excited just to think about what kind of impact her tweet will have on other people.”
Sources close to the tweet indicate that DelRio spent a considerable amount of time composing herself before entering into the public information stream. DelRio apparently spent well over five full minutes working on different drafts of the tweet before tweeting it.
No one has yet been able to ask DelRio what she plans to do with any early drafts of the tweet, though several collectors and museums have expressed interest in purchasing the work.
The tweet indicated that DelRio had been tweeting from her mobile device, a third generation iPhone which had been given to her by her stepfather, Craig Greene.
Mr. Greene says, “I gave her the phone as a gift for being one of my favorite stepchildren. I figured she would use it to make phone calls and listen to music, but I never could have guessed that she would use it to enter into a data sharing network that connects businesses, communities, and social networks all across the globe. I’m so proud.”
DelRio’s many business associates, social contacts, and community members were all glad to hear about the recent tweet.
Stephen Rupertus is a part-time worker at a frozen yogurt stand frequented by DelRio. “I enjoyed reading her tweet. I really got a lot of information about Marissa that will aide our relationship and help me learn how to better meet her frozen yogurt needs,” says Rupertus.
Actor Neal Patrick Harris, whom DelRio follows on Twitter, released a statement through his publicist showing his support for the tweet. The statement reads in part, “My Twitter-based relationship with Ms. DelRio has been a long and positive one. By exchanging facts and details about our lives I’ve learned how to be a better actor for her while she has learned more about me…. I am overjoyed to learn about Marissa’s latest tweet and I will be sure to read it at my convenience.”
Harris went on to hint that he would perhaps be interested in retweeting the tweet if it meets his own standards for retweeting.
Harris has been known to take advantage of retweeting, a tool offered by Twitter to allow users to further the sharing of tweets which they find to be particularly vital to the public discourse.
Twitter founder Jack Dorsey says he was happy to hear the news of DelRio’s tweet. “Twitter can do all sorts of things for people, and this tweet is a great example of that. By tweeting this tweet, Marissa has connected herself to a thriving community of millions of people, businesses, and social causes who are sharing and exchanging their information to make the world a better place.”
Not all reactions to the tweet have been positive, though. Nick Carbone is The Slant’s head twitter critic. He found the tweet to be “The very epitome of banality. Right now we’re seeing some incredible tweets coming from a lot of young tweeters, especially those in the vanguard Rocky Mountain Twittersphere. DelRio’s tweet was a sad reminder that not everyone has yet moved on from the mundane ‘real tweet’ style that dominated spring of 2010.”
Another twitter user, Kyle McCallister, has alleged that DelRio’s tweet may be a shameless rip-off of a tweet he tweeted last month. “Look at the two tweets! There can be no doubt that hers completely rips off the form that I pioneered in my September 23rd tweet. I feel that I deserve to be both acknowledged and compensated for the clear impact I’ve had on Marissa’s tweet.”
DelRio has not yet addressed these allegations, but a source close to her has told The Slant that the claims are unfounded. The source, who wished to remain anonymous, said “It’s crazy. Obviously DelRio is aware of the tweet Mr. McCallister is referring to, after all the two are both members of a large and efficient information sharing network. But DelRio’s new tweet has little in common with McCallister’s; there is no issue here.”
In a press conference following the tweeting of the tweet, DelRio told her many fans and followers that “While I am proud of this tweet, I am by no means content. I will not rest on my laurels. I plan on beginning work on another tweet right away… The lack of exciting things going on in my life will not stop me from keeping up my consistent tweeting.”