Travis James Offenberger, September 30, 1972 (Parkersburg, West Va.) -
VP candidate for NeoWhig Party (aka Neo-Whig Party) (2004)
Running mate with nominee: Chester Notgerman (b. 1969)
Popular vote: ? (0.00%)
Electoral vote: 0/538
The campaign:
Apparently based in St. George, Utah, the Neo-Whig Party was basically a venue for expressing a sort of fratboy political humor. The following is a biography of Presidential nominee Chester "Chest" Notgerman--
Meet Our Candidate - Chester "Chest" Notgerman
The Notgermans know hard work; in fact, they invented it. The Notgermans have been producing inexpensive casual wear in Haiti for large corporations since the early 1940's. The values of hard work (and exploiting child labor) have been passed down from generation to generation, making Chest the man he is today.
Chest's grandparents came to America after fleeing Germany during World War II. They decided to change their name from Von Nichtdeutsch to the more "Americanized" Notgerman. After a few months living a precarious existence in the Hell's Kitchen section of New York City, they settled into the Remlington, West Virginia area and began planting roots for an all-American family.
Chest's father, Juergen "Biff" Notgerman, was a West Virginia State Senator in the 60's and 70's. Senator Biff Notgerman was credited with increasing state funding for private schools and reducing the income taxes of high-income families. Who can forget his famous campaign slogan, "Why Penalize Success?" His greatest accomplishment was in 1974 when the "Notgerman Omnibus Crime Bill" was passed outlawing life sentences and imposing mandatory death sentences via forced rectal insertion of a large steel pole for offenses including overdue library books and public urination. Senator Notgerman was often referred to as Biff the Impaler.
Chest's mother, June Notgerman, was instrumental in creating WROHP (Women Running Off Husband's Power) an organization established to protect the interests of the top 1% of American women. WROHP was the organization that forced the FDA to make certain prescription medications more accessible to at-risk high-income families (Valium Act of 1965).
Biff and June Notgerman gave birth to Chest on January 2, 1969 in a log cabin on the old Notgerman homestead outside of Sistersville, West Virginia. Though both of Chest's parent were burdened with hectic schedules, Chest manage to live a happy childhood with the love and care of many non-English speaking nannies.
In 1976, Chest entered the South Florida Beach Military academy. There he developed many of the leadership skills he still holds today. Chest was leader of the Entertainment Battalion and Captain of the Tennis Squad.
In 1989 Chest attended Yale University. He easily floated to the top 3% of his class and graduate with honors. Afterwards he began practicing law in New York with the prestigious firm of Benton, Bueller and Carnes.
Within two years Chest managed to make partner. Everything he touched turned to gold. However, there was always a burning feeling deep down in his chest that something was not right. Sure, there were the supermodels, swanky Upper East Side penthouse and seven figure salary, but Chest knew that there was more to life than just mindless sex and conspicuous consumption. Then, on April 1, 2002, while perusing porn on the internet, Chest accidentally discovered the Neo-Whig website and became enthralled with the political theories of William Grim and William Doty, referred to respectively as the Cicero and Marcus Aurelius of the New Millennium. And from that day on, Chest Notgerman decided to devote his life to the Gospel of Neo-Whiggism.
The rest, as they say, is history.
The Party Manifesto and Agenda serve as the 2004 platform--
The Neo-WHIG Manifesto
By William James Madison Grim
What We Believe
1. Looking good on camera does not make one an expert at anything (except looking good on camera). The combined IQ of Hollywood is less than the total number of teeth of three randomly selected West Virginians.
2. Political correctness is a polite expression for Stalinism. Vegetarians are basically evil people. (Hitler was a vegetarian.) And Tea-Totalers are condemned to Eternity to Hell. (Jesus drank wine and that's good enough for me.)
3. High culture is better than pop culture. Stephen King sucks; Thomas Pynchon is a genius. Rap is not music. The path from Duke Ellington to Snoop Doggy Doggy has not been one of evolutionary ascendancy.
4. Globalism is good. Starbucks is good; Coca-Cola is good; Barnes & Noble is good. And let's face it, most independent bookstores suck out the wazoo.
5. People who don't like jazz are communists and/or perverts.
6. The Dixie Chicks are not hot; Shania Twain, on the other hand, is mega-hot.
7. Too much money is spent on the retarded. We want it drastically reduced. Besides, it's not like they'll even notice it.
8. The Death Penalty is good and its use should be extended, perhaps to overdue library books or spammers
9. The designated hitter rule is an abomination and should be eliminated from the American League.
10. Soccer is a sissy sport.
11. Groundhog Day should be a national holiday.
12. Speed limits and parking meters should be unconstitutional.
Neo-Whig Agenda 2004
By William Grim
1. Eliminate income tax. Replace with jackass tax.
2. Mandatory death penalty for grafitti.
3. Geneva Concention does not apply to Muslims or the French.
4. Owl is the symbol of the Neo-Whig Party because we're smarter than everyone else.
5. Judges and lawyers must wear white wigs at all times, even in the shower. Hey, we are the Neo-WHIG Party after all.
6. Fat chicks prohibited from wearing low-riders and belly shirts.
7. Every town with a population of over 400 must have at least one Starbucks, preferably two.
8. All flight attendants must be female, under the age of 30, unmarried and Swedish.
9. Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Vermont to lose statehood and revert to colony status.
10. Speed limits and parking meters to be prohibited by constitutional amendment.
11. "What, Me Worry?" to replace E Pluribus Unum as national motto.
12. John Wayne to replace FDR on dime.
13. Operation Self-Esteem--free breast implants for all women smaller than 40D.
14. Income tax marriage penalty to be increased. We're tired of swinging singles having to support the wasteful lifestyles of married persons with children.
15. All beer, wine and liquor containers will be required to sport labels extolling the health benefits of daily adult beverage consumption.
16. Operation Latino Outreach-- bull-fighting will be legalized in all 50 states.
17. Corporal punishment will be re-instituted in the public schools, and capital punishment where needed.
18. The State of the Union Address will be given in Latin, and U.S. senators will be required to wear togas when they are in the Senate chambers.
19. The name of the Commonwealth of Virginia will be changed to East Virginia.
20. The United States will commit itself to developing a dilithium-based warp drive engine by the year 2025.
The selection of a running-mate was decided via an essay contest. The address in St. George, Utah to send the essay does indeed trace in 2004 to someone named Doty.
Travis J. Offenberger, a resident of Ohio, was the winner--
Why I Would Be A Good NeoWhig V.P.
By Travis J. Offenberger
Gentlemen, good people of the party, members of the press and those who will be known as miscellaneous, I have come here today to announce my intentions of running for the Vice Presidency under the flag of the great NeoWHIG party.
I look across this great nation and what do I see? Rampant unemployment, a citizenry disenchanted by the political elite, clone soldiers engaged in a galactic war of supremacy and John Tesh walking the streets unmolested. Ladies and Gentlemen, how can this stand? How can we move forward as a nation when the very fabric of our civilization is being torn asunder? The question of where to look for answers looms just as large.
Shall we look to the special interests? They don't care.
Shall we look to the entrenched Washington elite? They can't care.
Perhaps answers lie in the much speculated, but never delivered Full House series finally. As much as Dave Coulier would like to, the Olson twins would never go for it, and can we really trust their opinion?
No my friends, we must a chart a new course. One that goes forward into the future instead of back in time, cause folks, Trek has done it to death. The answer lies in one word, seven letters, three syllables, a bunch of consonants and a few vowels. That answer is the neoWHIG party and the truths for which they stand.
I stand here today seeking the Vice Presidency of that great party. I want to be your Garfunkle, your Oats, Messina or Teller if need be. I seek your nomination, and the approval that is the lifeblood of every second banana.
We know that the party stands for, and her founding principals are well known and much debated. Yet I will not abide to be a yes man to the politics of the "as usual." The ideas that I bring to the table are as varied as the original party platform, and compliment them in many instances. Among my many passions are the following:
1. Line dancing is a "loser yuppie activity" and will be referred to as such in all appropriate literature.
2. Not all children are precious. They are your problem and they are far too often heard instead of merely seen. This must stop.
3. All declarations of "federal disaster zones" shall cease. In the case of areas devastated by flood, fire, hurricane or tornados, you are on your own. This shall fall under the new federal guidelines covered in the pamphlet "Shit Happens and Sometimes it Happens to You."
4. Federal legislation will be introduced to force competing "boy bands" to fight to the death. Only one shall reign supreme at any given time. Never again shall we be forced to endure the concurrent nightmares of nSync and The Backstreet Boys.
5. We must simplify. Several states shall be joined into one. No longer shall we be confused by North Dakota, West Virginia, South Carolina and the such. Soon we shall have the great states of Dakota, Carolina and a once again unified Virginia.
6. It is my opinion that California holds too much sway in election politics, and shall be broken up into two or possibly three individual states. Texas is on my shit list too.
7. The Electoral College will be abolished. Elections in the future will consist of the competing parties digging a hole in a field from sunup to sundown. Whoever digs the deepest hole shall be declared the winner. Ballot issues shall be determined by watermelon eating contests.
8. Death metal bands and their fans shall be rounded up and placed into forced labor camps.
9. This prissy insistence that people not drive and talk on cell phones at the same time shall stop. For the love of God, we are all adults here.
10. It's pronounced "library," and the "r" is not silent.
11. Dodge-ball will be reinstituted as a mandatory part of every school child's physical education curriculum. It builds character and the split second reflexes that modern children sorely lack.
12. Prostitution, gambling, and marijuana shall be legal and taxed beyond the capacity for rational thought.
13. As repayment for America's selfless efforts to bring freedom to the world in the past century, we shall gladly annex Canada as payment in full and break it up into several new states.
My nomination lies in your good hands, and the course we will chart together will lead the way for this great nation for years to come. I stand here but a simple citizen who has never before held or pursued public office. I am the result of a long line of janitors, plant foremen and doughnut makers born and raised in the foothills of Southern Ohio. I am one of the people, and I will gladly accept your nomination.
May God bless the United States of America.
After Offenberger's selection, the following autobiography appeared on the Party website--
Travis J. Offenberger - V.P. Candidate
By Travis J. Offenberger
The legacy of Travis Offenberger, nominee for the Vice President of the NeoWhig party and world-renowned big game hunter, begins in what his parents still call the "old world." As a child, he was regaled with stories of his father's service to the Kaiser and happy go lucky lifestyle in Düsseldorf. His mother led an equally impressive life, and served as a prostitute in the German Army on the Russian front. She would proudly tell her son how she was decorated for valor on the battlefield no less than five times. It was fate that brought the two lovers together, and after being indicted (but not convicted!) of war crimes in the fall of 1946, the pair immigrated to America.
Once nestled within the bosom of the mid-Ohio valley, the pair made a life for themselves selling nuclear secrets to the highest bidder and tending the earth on their sausage farm. In those heady days of prosperity, the couple could think of nothing other than starting a family, though try as they might they remained childless for many years. It was not until a set of circumstances involving a tractor pull contest, a few kind fords from former President Lyndon Johnson and a drunken New Years Eve grope fest in the back seat of a 1966 Chevelle changed everything. Their first and only child, Travis J. Offenberger was born on September 30, 1972 in Parkersburg, West Virginia.
Travis' early records are sealed by court order, but if asked he will tell of a childhood that consisted mostly of school in the winter and long hours on the farm in the summer. At the age of seven he stunned the agricultural community by cross breeding a bratwurst with a wienerschnitzel giving birth to the world's first WeinerWurst™. While the Nobel committee applauded his efforts, word of condemnation from the Vatican labeled the young farmer a "heretic" and his creation a "crime against nature."
Later in life Offenberger would attend Ohio University in Athens, Ohio earning doctorates in both Psychology and Parapsychology. In 1994 he entered the record books as the first man to break all Ten Commandments in all fifty states in fifty days. Although the June 2-3 Missouri/Kansas cross border murder/idolatry spree casts a pall over the record, Offenberger remains proud of his accomplishment.
After college, Travis held a number of jobs, among them VP of Sporadic Enterprises, a Macon Georgia based greeting card and Inter Uterine Device (IUD) manufacturer. He also played second base for the Durham Bulls from 1994-1997 and draw up articles of impeachment against corrupt Montana Senator Kip "Backscratcher" Hoolihey. It was during these proceeding that Travis got the politics bug, and began to look for the party that fit his needs and lifestyle. It was during a misspelled Google search on the word "Diverticulitis" that Offenberger came across the NeoWhig web site, and he became immediately intrigued with their platform.
Now lets go have pudding.
A Notgerman/Offenberger victory on Election Day would have had some potential problems. First, it is probable there was no such person as Chester "Chest" Notgerman and secondly Offenberger was below the age of 35.
Election history: none
Other occupations: gamer
Notes:
Published the Mythe online game in 2004.
Registered Republican.
