I always wondered just how much the fishing angle would play if I strode up to the voting booth and was faced with the unenviable choice of Tweedledum, “I love the out of doors, some of my best friends live there” – and Tweedledee, “I love the out of doors, I fly fish there often.”

As both were generously financed by Goldman Sachs – and all other things being equal … would fishing tilt the balance ?

… not after last weekend.

But the publicist that dreamed this stuff up should be elected Lifetime Press Secretary, as this is the logical conclusion to a decade of reality TV, the Celebrity Infomercial.

“Infomercial” because you can’t call them candidates, as the Law requires all your opponents equal time to fidget with guns, snow, and fly fishing – and try to look polished in the doing.

It’s the same dance seen on your TV each night. Commercials with ornaments and pine trees, snow, and smiling white teethed children – only nobody dares say the C H R I S T M A S word, as the Thanksgiving turkey hasn’t been carved yet. (Part of the deal struck with the major networks when they swore never to call the election before the polls on the West Coast had closed … you can’t say “X-Mas” until turkey’s been served.)

In four years time, it’ll be Jerry Brown’s California – where they’ll prop up an aging Linda Ronstadt, slather her with ‘dark tan’ pancake ending around her Adam’s apple – prop her next to a surfboard, and let her crack wise about Sushi …

Episode 2 through 8 will feature Jerry peeling off his Birkenstocks so he can tout “green” jobs while barefooting wine grapes, then posing nest to a waving field of premier bud – while he rationalizes balancing California’s budget by exporting reefer to the rest of the lower 48, and specifically your block …

He won’t mention that his plan to balance the Federal deficit involves similar trade with most of the European Union. The Cartels will have to be content smuggling Bananas, as they’ve got plenty of foot soldiers, but they lack Cruise missiles and the half dozen nuclear carriers needed to make us take them seriously.

Then some fellow from Wisconsin will want thirty minutes on Sharp Cheddar, before yielding the floor to his colleague from Hawaii who’ll pimp pineapples and grass skirts.

Trust me, you’ll love it.

Oprah Winfrey’s retiring from the little screen, can she be part of this burgeoning trend seeking office?

She’s got the docu-drama in the can, featuring fly fishing and Oprah’s Top 10 List, and most fear executive office may be one of them.

You cheered the new fly fishing movie thinking it was going to bring flocks of young folks to fill gaps in our line, how it was going to mainstream our quaint little craft into a marketing juggernaut like NASCAR, and now look what we’ve got …

Guys older than us airbrushed into health, adding to the burden of empty water bottles in your riffle.

While you’re up in the parking lot barred from the water, with those nice professionally dressed – yet unsmiling men with sunglasses examine both your fly box and your colon.