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Ohioans Embrace New Image; State Calls for All Haters to "Come Home"
Ohio is preparing to capitalize on its Election Day 2004 notoriety with a bold new public relations strategy that state officials hope will transform the "Buckeye State" into the "Unemployed State That Is Using Its Free Time to Embrace Hate, Discrimination, and Fear."
The new slogan is the result of a statewide contest geared toward "redefining and reinvigorating" Ohio. The slogan was created by Paul Freddickle, an unemployed Ku Klux Klan Grand Dragon and youth minister.
Freddickle believes his slogan won because "It really represents a way of life - the Ohio way of life." Freddickle was once a respected and highly-paid pharmacist throughout the 1990s, but lost his job as more Americans were forced to turn to foreign countries and the Internet for their prescription drugs.
"That bastard Clinton had me tied to the pharmacy counter," Freddickle claims angrily. "Thanks to President Bush, I have time and energy to persecute those who believe or live differently than me."
Though Ohio has kept a fairly low profile in the days since it awarded George W. Bush its electoral votes, the state has been busily preparing a bold new image.
"We've been gearing up to show America what we're really like in Ohio," explained Orville Fraggus, Director of Ohio Public Relations and Depictions of Public Morality. He added that Ohioans have a very clear direction: "It's something that we call blind faith! It's going to lead us where other states fear to tread."
That path is set to include an extensive public relations campaign designed to bring "fundamentalists, bigots, and all those filled with hate back home again." As part of the campaign, the state will begin airing commercials on the Christian Broadcast Network and the Fox News Channel.
Meanwhile, the Ohio State Legislature is weighing a new bill that would make it legal for a man to brutally kill another man if he feels that he has been looked at in "a nasty, gay kind of way." It is expected to pass with bipartisan support.
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