Bull's Eye

But that was enough. Arch rival Laloo Prasad Yadav was first off the block. A high-powered think-tank from his rail ministry burnt the midnight oil and came up with this punchline for Hillaryji: "Till there’s burger in the Mac, Hillary will run ahead of the pack." The slogan (a Yankee adaptation of ‘Till the samosa has aloo, Bihar will be ruled by Laloo’) has already been e-mailed to campaign managers along with the results of a snap poll conducted in eight US cities by a Delhi-based pollster. The findings are revealing: 60 per cent of those polled were happy with the slogan and the free Mac handed out for answering the questionnaire. Thirty per cent were angry that they were woken up at an unearthly hour. The other ten had switched to organic food and couldn’t care less.

The Congress, known to procrastinate before taking any initiative, left it to Veerappa Moily to come up with bright ideas. A preliminary report, running into 146 pages, looks at the impact of Indira Gandhi’s ‘Garibi Hatao’ slogan as well as the catchphrase ‘India is Indira, Indira is India’. "Both ‘naras’ are being closely studied by Hillaryji," claims a party spokesperson. According to him, Moily’s final report—in four volumes—will only be released in 2010, much after the US presidential polls. Incidentally, a second set of proposals, with the blessings of 10 Janpath, have also been put forward. It suggests that the Democrats use "merchants of death" as its theme to fight the Republicans. "The slogan can work well everywhere...except in Gujarat," says a footnote.

And what of the BJP? Well, they have decided to go the other way, oppose the Democrats. A senior party leader revealed: "We have to stand by the Republicans who restored democracy in Iraq and fought the Taliban. If they want, they can use our Shining India campaign." But there are few takers for this, given the recession in the US. However, some Republicans read a deeper meaning into the musings of a BJP ideologue, "that after defeat comes victory".

The CPI(M), predictably, is dismissive of US imperialists. However, it has dispatched a leather-bound volume of the complete speeches and writings of Prakash Karat and Sitaram Yechury on the Indo-US nuclear deal. The collection is expected to be a surprise bestseller. Doubleday has recast it as a self-help book, titled ‘The Easy Way To Fight Insomnia’.