JAPAN SNAPSHOT - On the Campaign Trail
To: allstaff@kitagawacampaign2023
From: captain@kitagawacampaign2023
Re: We’re in it to win!
Team:
I have great news. Assemblyman Kitagawa has decided to seek re-election to what will be his eleventh five-year term. Oikawa Ward is so fortunate for his (key messages, note!):
Senior leadership. Nothing beats a half century of steely street smarts honed in the early Showa Era, a time of great challenge and heroic efforts of the population to work 24/7 for basically nothing more than a bowl of rice and national pride. SHORT VER.: If Showa people can’t solve it, no one can.
Change. We turn to 89-year-olds like Assemblyman Kitagawa to bring meaningful and lasting change. Historic challenges of Big Tech, Big Data, and a China determined to pulverize Japan into fine dust particles? Bah. (See Showa grit above.)
Deep knowledge of motherhood issues, teen malaise, sustainability/equality/diversity. He knows a ton about Keidanren donor golf tournaments and government handouts to the electric power industry too.
Tax-free status and an always-open-door policy for “New Religion Institutions.”
We will make the announcement next Tuesday. I’m thinking we really surprise and excite the hoi polloi with a rousing format.
We get our party faction leader, Senior National Diet Member Azuma, to give a speech in front of a train station (at least three connecting commuter lines, 80%+ corporate HQ saturation) from the top of one of our six brand new Toyota campaign buses donated by the non-cult “U” Church. Azuma-sensei can announce our re-election bid, give his endorsement, and then call Kitagawa-sensei to the mic for a soaring policy speech!
New thoughts? I didn’t think so. We know what works.
Kirishima
To: allstaff@kitagawacampaign2023
From: captain@kitagawacampaign2023
Re: Modernize, expand policies?
Team:
I am heartened by the excited and uplifting messages I received from each of you about our 11th re-election bid. Well, not each. Actually Mune-kun, alone, failed to respond, so I can only assume he was too busy to lift a finger in support of our wise 89-year-old candidate, or that he had to first ask his daddy what to do…just like that time when he didn’t get into Waseda University after his third examination failure. (Mune’s dad pulled some strings on his wife’s side of the family I’m told.)
Anyway, spirit of Transparency and Consensus, which we all know are Assemblyman Kitagawa’s guiding principles, a few of you asked if we shouldn’t “modernize” or “at least expand upon” our key re-election messages.
Great initiative and commitment! Yet I would have been even more impressed if any of you gave a single example of what new messages you would suggest.
Since clearly none of you have “a set,” I’ll get the discussion going with a few spit balls for the group.
I’m thinking we could toss in a promise to build a new sand box play area in Harunogawa Park—kind of ties into our Motherhood theme…kids and all that.
Here’s another. Selling the west side of the now-fully-shuttered-and-bankrupt shotengai market street to Kajima Construction Corp. for the 152-unit luxury housing block they’re requesting is another thought…but that’s just me.
We are all about Consensus here, so my door’s open to any of your (concrete, intelligent, non-Communist) thoughts too.
I’ll wait.
Kirishima
To: allstaff@kitagawacampaign2023
From: captain@kitagawacampaign2023
Re: Think, people
Team:
No. There is no way in hell we are doing anything for the LGBT-whatever people. What, so we can secure their like 14 warped votes??
Kirishima
To: allstaff@kitagawacampaign2023
From: captain@kitagawacampaign2023
Re: Elder needs, white gloves, hachimaki
Team:
Thanks for zero actionable feedback.
Executive Decision time—and yet another demonstration of why I make a campaign salary and you are paid just north of 7-11 staff. We’ll go with the sand box idea. Nemoto, add that to our Talking Points (draft 1b), will you?
Assemblyman Kitagawa has a few requests for us. When he gets to the rousing “Gambarimashou” part of the speech where he demonstrates continued energy and vitality, he finds that he can experience a bit of a leak in his pants due to stressing some of the words. He’s 89, people. Please secure a 36-count package of Man Guards for the bus.
They’re made by Kao—a critical donor. Anyone who picks up His Dependables, made by Lion, is fired so damn quick.
Assemblyman Kitagawa also wonders whether we have enough white linen gloves. He will of course need a fresh, very white pair for each speech and bus ride. Those candidate hands won’t wave themselves to voters, and we must project the cleanest of images. (BTW, I’m told his 29-year opponent, the so-called “civil rights lawyer” and OMG ROFL “consumer advocate” Morimoto Gen, will eschew gloves as well as loudspeaker bus tours of the neighborhoods…something about getting with the times. Yeah good luck with that, Candidate Lamebrain. Enjoy all 31 votes you will attract with that deadbeat Reiwa attitude.)
Finally, Assemblyman Kitagawa wants to be sure that we have a “Nippon #1” hachimaki head band for his campaign launch speech. It seems he really didn’t appreciate the “Earth First” hachimaki someone gave him to wear five years ago.
He said, “I’m the 89-year-old ranking AssemblyMAN, not a 25-year-old housewife bleating on about $%#/& child support payments.” I was mortified.
I trust you all can get it sorted. Go to the local Don Quixote to pick up a “Nippon #1” or talk to one of our ‘Shining Yamamoto Era in Manchuko Club’ donors. They must have pallets of that stuff lying around.
P.S. Mune-kun, got your message. Let’s take it off line. I’ll see you in my office tomorrow morning at 4:00AM sharp when you can explain your lack of enthusiasm. Hope that gives you enough time to first collect your thoughts with daddy.
Kirishima
To: allstaff@kitagawacampaign2023
From: captain@kitagawacampaign2023
Re: Baloney that any Dentsu new hire can spike
Team:
No, I am not concerned about NHK TV’s inquiry about the ALLEGED graft payments from “almost half” of the TSE’s First Section corporations. What a load of kumquats! The 12-minute hidden camera compilation video of Assemblyman Kitagawa taking stuffed suitcases in the private room of Keio Plaza Hotel’s top tempura restaurant is equally worthless.
The Shunkan Bunshu story about Assemblyman Kitagawa’s son, Harunobu, arrested in 2018 for stealing ladies’ underwear from neighbor clotheslines is bad, I’ll grant you. But (key messages, note!):
THIS WAS FIVE YEARS AGO.
Harunobu is the son of a respected Assemblymember.
(And if that isn’t enough ammo, add the coup de grace) Harunobu is a graduate of Waseda University, which he was accepted to purely on grades. Unlike some people we know. Mune-kun.
Put all this crap to rest, people. With the above messages, as well as a not-so-veiled threat to bug the home of the “reporter” calling, these stories can be spiked by any first-year Dentsu employee.
If you do find, however, that these stories are growing legs (i.e., you’re incompetent), leave your resignation letter on my desk. I’m sure a housewife from Adachi Ward running on claptrap like Clean Water will be happy to take you on.
Kirishima
To: allstaff@kitagawacampaign2023
From: captain@kitagawacampaign2023
Re: Total confidence
Team:
Yes, Asahi Shimbun has consumer advocate Morimoto polling at 54%. I read the piece.
In the actual newspaper, mind you, not on my cheap Korean Smartphone. (Clearly I’m not a graduate of Toyo Design & Animation Vocational College like you lot. Except Mune-kun who got into Waseda by the skin of his teeth and a last-chance phone call from his maternal Grandma.)
I dispute the Asahi numbers and know we’ll win by 4.2 points come Sunday. Know why?
Permit me to give you a lesson on how elections work.
Asahi is completely missing the fact that our friends at the non-cult “U” Church (NEVER write this name out…Assemblyman Kitagawa’s position is clear. He’s been invited to make seven speeches there but has never been aware of any quid pro quo) will be delivering the votes of precisely their entire membership in Oikawa Ward. That comes to 11,350 big ones for our boy and a big fat kick in the dick to the Ralph Nader wannabe.
None of this means our work is done. Far from it.
Assemblyman Kitagawa tells me that in addition to the sand lot (my idea), he has come to see the wisdom of green lighting the sale of the west side of our shuttered market street to Kajima Corp. (my idea too).
The man is however a political genius. As part of the luxury apartment block transaction, Assemblyman Kitagawa has extracted a pledge from Kajima to bankroll the construction of an 8-child Day Care Center. It will be open Mondays and Thursdays (all weekdays are impossible) and will be where the fish shop, fresh grocer, and rice purveyor used to be.
Motherhood! Kids! It all ties beautifully together.
The center will be online by no later than 2035. Nemoto-kun, add all of this to the Talking Points (draft 1c).
Kirishima
To: allstaff@kitagawacampaign2023
From: captain@kitagawacampaign2023
Re: Morimoto dick kick, and after party
Team:
Banzai and Kampai to Assemblyman Kitagawa! He slayed the Morimoto Dragon by 4.3 points, and has each and every one of you to thank for his victory. Even Mune-kun. (Nice job on that one blog post about a housewife’s struggle with juggling child and elder care. Got the tears flowing among the no-longer-young-female set, I’m sure.)
We think the 0.1 point boost over my earlier calculation was thanks to the final two-day phone banking effort led by…drum roll please…
Yamaura-chan! Clearly she didn’t go to Toyo Animation. LOL.
As the most outperforming female member of our Team, Yamaura-chan will be arranging our drinks party. Everyone, please let her know your beverage and food choices asap.
Kirishima
I’d vote if I could!!
Omg that’s brilliant!! BRILLIANT!! 🙇♂️