GOP presidential candidate and resident curmudgeon Dr. Rand Paul surprised the Twittersphere on December 23 with his funny tribute to Festivus, but no one was more surprised than late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel.
“I was enjoying a leisurely day off with my family and got a call from one of my producers to check out Rand Paul’s Festivus List of Grievances on Twitter. Being a huge Seinfeld fan, as well as a huge fan of the whole idea of the List, I was ready to be disappointed. Let’s face it, Rand Paul comes off as the biggest buzzkill during those debates. He is always like that kid in fourth grade who no one else wanted to sit next to at lunch. But then I start to read the tweets, and they are actually pretty funny. The “schlong” reference was pretty solid.”
“I had my booker, Carol, call his people to get him on the show after the holiday break, and his people were really excited until she started to mention how much I loved his Festivus tweets. Apparently the conversation got pretty quiet, and one of his staffers hinted that maybe they had actually been written by someone else. Then using all of the power of ABC and Disney, we didn’t stop until we got to the bottom of this mystery.”
After a thorough investigation, the source of the Tweets was attributed to campaign volunteer Jason Melinski, a high school senior from Franklin, Iowa. According to Melinski, Paul took notice of his comedic and computer skills after an event in Des Moines in November.
“I was on my phone tweeting to my friends about how boring all this campaign stuff really is and that there has got to be a better way to get extra credit to bring up my AP US Government grade and I didn’t realize that Dr. Paul was actually looking over my shoulder and he started to laugh. First he said that he was amazed that I could actually send messages on my phone, then he said that my joke about how boring the campaign is was really funny. The next thing I knew, he was asking me to be in charge of the campaign’s Twitter account. “
After Kimmel learned of his true identity, Melinski was offered the standard nine week tryout contract and will leave for Hollywood after the New Year. When reached for further comment, Melinski gleefully said, “This dream come true. If I play my cards right, I won’t even have to finish high school. And to all of my friends at Franklin High School, have fun with those AP’s in May, suckas!”