Pity the Prankster: He’s Got No Role in This Governor’s Race

STATE OF CALIFORNIA

EMPLOYMENT DEVELOPMENT

DEPARTMENT

APPLICATION FOR UNEMPLOYMENT

COMPENSATION

Name: Marco Stevenson

Other Names You Are Known By: “In-the-Dark Marco,” “Get-Even Stevenson”

Education: cum laude graduate, G. Gordon Liddy School of Political Plumbing

Employment History:

* Internship with CREEP, the Committee to Re-Elect the President, 1972. (I don’t like to brag, but it was my idea to order the extra anchovies on those 200 pizzas we had delivered to that Democratic rally, saying Ted Kennedy ordered them.)

* “Gofer” for Dick Tuck, the Democratic trickster who, when Nixon’s train stopped in San Luis Obispo so Nixon could make a speech from the observation car during the 1962 gubernatorial campaign, put on a conductor’s uniform and ordered the train to pull out while Nixon was still talking.

* Consultant to certain Orange County Republicans I cannot name: I recruited the phony Democratic candidate on the ballot in a special Assembly election to pull votes from a stronger Democrat to help the Republicans win. What the hey -- my guys won, and I’m not in prison, right?

* Consultant to Sen. John Warner reelection campaign in Virginia: I was the one who used the nail scissors to cut a guy’s head out of a picture of him with the black governor, Doug Wilder, and Bill Clinton, and replace it with the head of the Democratic candidate, and used the composite for a political ad. What the hey -- it worked, and I’m still not in prison, right?

* Talent scout for opponents of Antonio Villaraigosa’s campaign for mayor: I hired the woman who impersonated Gloria Molina’s voice and called herself “Gloria Morina” in the recorded phone messages warning voters off Villaraigosa. Hey, just what is the statute of limitations on that, anyway?

* Primary campaign consultant to Gray Davis: I helped put together that $10-million ad campaign against Dick Riordan that knocked Riordan out of the GOP race and put Bill Simon up against Davis, which is like putting Tyson up against Lewis -- Shari Lewis.

References: Donald Segretti, Professor Liddy, Bob Mulholland

Name and Address of Employer Who Dismissed You: I don’t like to say, but you’d know him just by his hair, and he lives in Sacramento, which lets Bart Simpson out.

Job Title and Description: unofficially, saboteur. My job was to derail the Bill Simon campaign.

Weekly Salary: Let’s just say the high four figures. It’s a long time between campaigns.

Describe Why You Were Let Go From Your Job: Don’t you people read the papers? Who needs a professional political saboteur on the payroll when the candidate is doing the job for you? Lemme remind you:

Simon says he won’t release his tax returns, but then he will, and when he does, it’s peekaboo, striptease, look fast, don’t blink.

He says he’s against gay rights, then he signs a pledge backing gay pride day, then he says no he didn’t sign it, an advisor used his computerized signature. Some advisors. He goes through four campaign managers by Labor Day, fires half his staff. I mean, this guy seems to set his watch by every clock he passes.

He whines about Davis getting campaign dough from Metabolife, and then it turns out he got a little money from Metabolife, too, but he says, oh, that’s different.

And the real doozy: This month he goes on a tear about the “evidence” of Davis taking a campaign contribution in a government office, which is illegal, and that there’s a picture to prove it, except it turns out the picture was taken in some rich guy’s den in Santa Monica, on a day that state offices aren’t even open. And so Simon’s gotta climb down off that horse. These guys are holding a gun to their own heads and saying, “Don’t come any closer or I’ll shoot.”

I mean, it couldn’t have turned out better if I had set it all up myself. So they canned me.

Not that I didn’t have big plans to bring down Simon -- I did. I can’t really tell you about them. They’re trade secrets. But every time I set out to launch something, Simon and his people got there first, tripping over their own feet.

It’s a shame, really. It could’ve been a beaut of a campaign. One of my best.

So I’m thinking of a change in scenery, getting out of California, maybe heading to one of those tropical places where the elections are always questionable, so no questions asked. You can mail my unemployment checks to Florida, right?

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Patt Morrison’s columns appears Mondays and Tuesdays. Her e-mail address is patt.morrison@latimes.com.