The American Spectator

NEW YORK — Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton today issued a press release consisting of a single blank sheet of paper followed by another sheet asking Americans to fill in the blank one with any campaign promise they wanted.

“Look, this is going to save us all a tremendous amount of time and money,” Clinton said in an interview this morning. “I could either spend the next 13 months paying millions of dollars to pollsters to figure out what the hell you people want me to say, or I could cut out the middle-man and let you put the words in my mouth yourselves. I think that makes a lot more sense, don’t you?”

Clinton’s campaign also opened a website to take campaign promises online and released a cell phone number and an 800 number to take promises via voice and text message.

“The senator is entirely committed to winning this election by promising anything the American people want her to,” said a source close to the campaign. “If that means promising to trick out the presidential limo, make Angelina Jolie secretary of state, turn PBS into the all-NASCAR channel, or send an army of super-intelligent robots to replace our troops in Iraq, she’ll do it.”

Asked where the United States would get an army of super-intelligent robots, the source replied, “You don’t think she intends to keep any of these promises, do you?”

Dante Scallion, a professor of political science at the University of New Hampshire, said the move was brilliant strategy.

“The beauty of this plan is that faxes get lost, e-mails get ‘accidentally’ deleted, and phone messages are always being inadvertently erased,” Scallion said. “The point is to make the people believe she cares about their issues. Once she’s elected, any promise that actually makes it to her desk can be sent to a congressional study committee, where it will die a slow and painful death by debate as she attacks Congress for thwarting the will of the people, all the while swiftly and ruthlessly implementing her own personal agenda. It’s brilliant. People will think they’re going to get free gasoline for life, but they’ll end up with public subsidies for the Oxygen network.”

In response to Clinton’s new strategy, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama pledged to replace his calls for bipartisanship in Washington with new, more inclusive, more inspirational calls for tripartisanship.

“Together, we can make America great again,” Obama said. “And make me president. Don’t forget the part about making me president.”

Former Sen. John Edwards, trailing Clinton and Obama in most polls, promised to buy every American adult of legal drinking age an SUV filled with beer. His campaign insisted the pledge was not in response to Clinton’s white paper plan, but came “because it’s the right thing to do for America.”