BURLINGAME, CA—Stressing that he is a “two-term United States senator for Christ’s sake,” White House Democratic hopeful Mike Gravel told reporters Wednesday that he can’t believe he’s polling neck-and-neck with a fucking nobody like Florida mayor Wayne Messam. “That Messam prick’s been in politics for, what, a few years? I was a legislator in nineteen-fucking-sixty-three. I should be in with the big dogs like Bernie or Liz Warren, not slumming it in the pissant 20,000-donors club,” said the 88-year-old prospective candidate, who added that “you would think a name like Mike goddamn Gravel would carry a little more weight than a mayor of some podunk town in godforsaken Florida.” “I’m the son of a bitch who read the Pentagon Papers into Congressional Record. Now, I’m competing to qualify for debates with this no-name Messam asshole, not to mention that hippy-dippy bullshit author Marianne Whatever-The-Hell-Her-Name-Is [Williamson]. I’m not even polling at 1% yet. Is it me or is there something really fucked with that picture? Wayne Messam, my ass.” At press time, Messam had pulled ahead of Gravel in the polls.