[For the beginning of this list, go to the last installment.]

2. This Person Is Out of Control and Could Be Crazy

For Longshanks, this tactic, also, was a little too easy to be all that much fun. By Longshanks' estimation, about 88 percent of the world's people could be considered, with some help from corroborating sources and relentless media scrutiny, completely nuts. And of course, once the word was out, the veil lifted, on that candidate -- that he or she was quick-tempered, or was not working with a complete set of tools -- almost anything they did, or didn't, do could be used as supporting evidence. A crazy person would try to act normal, would they not? Would not a crazy person appear completely sane, thus enabling them to come to a position of power in which they could influence world events and kill us all?

To marginalize an opponent, move him or her from the mainstream to the tributaries of oddity and deviance, all Longshanks needed was one small building block: The rest could manufactured by gesture, suspicion and inference. Or, better yet, a strange alchemy of two seemingly unrelated actions or quotations which on their own would seem harmless, even charming. Put them together, though, and they scream flake. Candidate A sometimes rides a bicycle to work. Well, alone that could be seen as endearing, environmentally friendly. Idiosyncratic, maybe -- what's wrong with jogging? -- but it keeps him in shape. Combine that, though, with his position, stated at a junior high six years before, that all dolphins trained and employed by the Navy for mine detection should be freed immediately. Now he's kind of a loon, is he not? Use some hyphens and gerunds and you're getting there: He's a bike-riding, dolphin-freeing meshuggener. Now find a picture of him with a beard, or wearing leather sandals, or standing next to Woody Harrelson, and the election's over.

A slightly more interesting variation on the theme, the Temperament Question, was Longshanks' newest favorite tactic. The press couldn't get enough of it. Tempers flared would lead any newscast, would be page one, almost automatically. All Longshanks needed was one instance of a raised voice, a flying off the handle, eyes narrowed, opponents interrupted. One witness, two -- it didn't matter how isolated the incident was. Let's say the candidate is named Reginald, and Reginald has been videotaped, after a low-income-housing ribbon-cutting, chewing out a member of his own staff for telling him the affair was casual, leaving him wearing jeans and a work shirt amidst 20 city councilpersons and developers in black suits. The door swings opens to question Reginald's temperament. Is this person fit for office? What if the leader of Qatar upsets him? Will he chew his head off? Will he cut him to pieces with a cleaver? How can we be sure?

At this point, Longshanks would get the words "prickly," "hot-tempered," "irritable," "short-fused," "acerbic" or "huffy" placed in profiles and news items, ideally as adjectives fixed before their names. "Short-fused Senate candidate X." "Prickly Assembly hopeful Y." His reporters loved the labels, their readers found it helpful in remembering who was who in a given race, and in a race where getting any name recognition at all was difficult, once everyone had decided on a label for a candidate, the labels were almost impossible to shake.

Longshanks, just to amuse himself, had tried the temper-label recently with no supporting evidence at all. He had a hunch that Senate candidate Saddam Nessat -- who was still baffled by the negative reaction he was getting to his name -- was a hothead, but hadn't heard anyone say anything at all to that effect. He sure looked like a hothead, with his bushy eyebrows and dark eyes and what Longshanks considered overly large and sharp incisors.

So Longshanks got his Pioneer Press helper to question the man's disposition, in an article titled "Is This Man Fit to Represent Illinois?" and featuring a photo of Nessat in mid-cackle. The piece rehashed an old story about Nessat's involvement in a scuffle in a cheese shop twelve years earlier, and went on to question neighbors and co-workers about what the article termed -- though they got no notable corroborating stories -- his "legendary temper." After that, members of the media who could muster up the energy to care showed up at Nessat's events with the hopes and expectations of seeing Nessat pop. It would make good TV, and it would bring some spice to the race. Longshanks knew, of course, that the whole thing would soon become a self-fulfilling and circular affair, the conclusion never in doubt. Nessat had just spoken at a PTA meeting in Bannockburn and was followed to his van by a pair of enterprising journalists, one print and one broadcast.

"Mr. Nessat," said one, a young reporter for the NBC affiliate, 26 and modeling herself after local hero Deborah Norville, "your temper is legendary. How would you respond--"

"Wait," said Nessat. "My what is legendary?"

"Your temper."

"Who said this?"

"It's in the Pioneer Press papers. And on the Internet. The word is you frighten people."

"This is absurd. Who--"

"How can people," said the print reporter, a 22-year-old man with the voice of a choirboy and the face of a collie, "feel comfortable with a senator who can't control his emotions? The voters want to know what kind of man will have his finger on the button."

"What button?"

"The red one?"

"I don't have my finger on any button."

"Not yet, sir, but someday you might."

"Have my finger on the button?"

"Yes sir. And please don't raise your voice. I'm only doing my job."

"I didn't raise my voice."

"Your wife said you sometimes raise your voice."

"My wife?"

"We called her. She said that you two have had arguments."

"We've been married 24 years!"

"Please don't yell at me. Is that how you yell at your wife?"

"That's none of your business!"

"See, that's the prickly side of him coming out," the NBC reporter muttered to her cameraman. She figured this was a good time to press him on the subject.

"Do you think a man who yells at his wife for 24 years is fit for elected office?"

"I didn't say that!"

"I suppose you're going to say we misquoted you. Isn't that argument a little tired, Mr. Nessat?"

"You people are driving me nuts!"

"There he goes again," she said.

At that point Nessat did a little jump in the air, his hands in the air, unable to control his exasperation.

"Don't hit me. Please." The choirboy was cowering in the parking lot, near tears, and the NBC cameraman was filming the cowering, and Nessat standing over him, looking exasperated. "I didn't bomb Iraq," the choirboy tried. "I was against the war. I like Iraqis!"

"I'm Persian! I'm Persian! There's a difference! Now get up! Get up, you wimp!"

And that was that. Those four seconds ran coast to coast and brought smiles and headshakes to approximately 200 million Americans, Longshanks gleefully among them, who watched as the Middle-Eastern-American man running for Senate loomed over the cowering young white reporter, extolling his heritage and questioning the young man's courage. Really now, wasn't this behavior unbecoming of a candidate for national office?