Fear and Loathing at Rolling Stone(8)

The same kind of tension began popping up on other fronts: the local high school principal tried to fire a young teacher for voicing a left-wing political bias in the classroom, but her students went on strike and not only forced the teacher’s reinstatement but very nearly got the principal fired. Shortly after that, Ned Vare and a local lawyer named Shellman savaged the State Highway Department so badly that all plans to bring the four-lane highway through town were completely de-funded. This drove the county commissioners into a filthy funk; the highway had been their pet project, but suddenly it was screwed, doomed ... by the same gang of bastards who had caused all the trouble last fall.

We began organizing in mid-August—six weeks earlier than last time—and unless we can pace the thing perfectly we might find ourselves limp and burned out two weeks before the election. I have a nightmare vision of our whole act coming to a massive orgiastic climax on October 25: two thousand costumed freaks doing the schottische, in perfect unison, in front of the County Courthouse ... sweating, weeping, chanting ... “Vote NOW! Vote NOW!” Demanding the ballot at once, completely stoned on politics, too high and strung out to even recognize their candidate, Ned Vare, when he appears on the courthouse steps and shouts for them all to back off: “Go back to your homes! You can’t vote for ten more days!” The mob responds with a terrible roar, then surges forward . . . Vare disappears . . .

I turn to flee, but the sheriff is there with a huge rubber sack that he quickly flips over my head and places me under arrest for felony conspiracy. The elections are canceled and J. Sterling Baxter places the town under martial law, with himself in total command . . .

Baxter is both the symbol and the reality of the Old/Ugly/Corrupt political machine that we hope to crack in November. He will be working from a formidable power base: a coalition of Buggsy’s “Taxpayers” and Comcowich’s right-wing suburbanites—along with heavy institutional support from both banks, the Contractors’ Association, and the all-powerful Aspen Ski Corporation. He will also have the financing and organizing resources of the local GOP, which outnumbers the Democrats more than two to one in registrations.

The Democrats, with an eye on the probability of another Edwards-style uprising on the Left, are running a political transvestite, a middle-aged realtor whom they will try to promote as a “sensible alternative” to the menacing “extremes” posed by Baxter and Ned Vare. The incumbent sheriff is also a Democrat.

Vare is running as an Independent, and his campaign symbol, he says, will be “a tree.” For the sheriff’s campaign, my symbol will be either a horribly deformed cyclops owl, or a double-thumbed fist, clutching a peyote button, which is also the symbol of our general strategy and organizing cabal, the Meat Possum Athletic Club. At the moment I am registered as an Independent, but there is still the possibility—pending the outcome of current negotiations for campaign financing—that I may file for office as a Communist. It will make no difference which label I adopt; the die is already cast in my race—and the only remaining question is how many Freaks, Heads, criminals, anarchists, beatniks, poachers, Wobblies, bikers, and Persons of Weird Persuasion will come out of their holes and vote for me. The alternatives are depressingly obvious: my opponents are hopeless bums who would be more at home on the Mississippi State Highway Patrol ... and, if elected, I promise to recommend them both for the kind of jobs they deserve.

Ned Vare’s race is both more complex and far more important than mine. He is going after the dragon. Jay Baxter is the most powerful political figure in the county. He is the county commissioner; the other two are echoes. If Vare can beat Baxter, that will snap the spine of the local/money/politics establishment ... and if Freak Power can do that in Aspen, it can also do it in other places. But if it can’t be done here, one of the few places in America where we can work off a proven power base—then it is hard to imagine it working in any other place with fewer natural advantages. Last fall we came within six votes, and it will probably be close again this time. Memories of the Edwards campaign will guarantee a heavy turnout, with a dangerous backlash factor that could wipe us out completely unless the Head population can get itself together and actually vote. Last year perhaps the Heads voted; this year we will need them all. The ramifications of this election go far beyond any local issues or candidates. It is an experiment with a totally new kind of political muscle ... and the results, either way, will definitely be worth pondering.

Editor’s note: in November 1970, Thompson lost by 465 votes.