Beer snake for mayor!

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The beer cup snake in Section S at Canad Inns Stadium. (MIKE.DEAL@FREEPRESS.MB.CA)

If you're depressed about the prospect of having to choose between Sam Katz and Judy Wasylycia-Leis this fall, here are four little words to cheer you up: Beer Snake for mayor!

This is no joke. According to well-placed sources in the reptile community, Manitoba's most popular inanimate object is about to sign up at the city clerk's office in a bid to become the first snake ever elected to public office in Winnipeg.

Although Beer Snake has yet to declare, it already enjoys a much higher public profile than four out of six registered mayoral candidates. To my knowledge, Ed Ackerman, Rav Gill, Avery Petrowski and Nancy Thomas have never appeared on the front page of the Winnipeg Free Press.

Beer Snake also may be more electable than either Wasylycia-Leis or Katz. But don't just take my word for it. Consider the evidence instead:

1. Beer Snake is extremely flexible.

THE best thing you can say about Sam Katz is he refuses to back down in the face of criticism. This is also the worst thing you can say about Sam Katz.

Winnipeg's two-term mayor is nothing if not stubborn. When cornered, he tends to dig in his claws like a badger and steadfastly refuse to give any ground -- even when logic dictates giving ground is the only sane course of action.

Obviously, flexibility is not one of Katz's qualities. But his main opponent is equally impaired in this regard.

During her May 4 campaign-launch address, Judy Wasylycia-Leis said she was very angry about some of the moves Katz has made in office. When asked to elaborate, she could not specify a single course of action taken by the incumbent mayor over the past six years.

Unlike either of these frontrunners, Beer Snake is capable of wrapping itself around any problem, owing both to its multi-segmented nature and the fact each of its thousand-plus components is made out of highly malleable polypropylene.

If you want a leader who can move with the times, you have no choice but to elect Beer Snake. There is no other way to twist the issue.

2. Beer Snake is adored by the electorate.

IN two straight polls, the methodical people over at Probe Research determined Katz was the No. 1 choice of Winnipeg voters and Wasylycia-Leis was No. 2.

But these findings are incomplete, as nobody bothered to gauge the support of the establishment candidates against that of Beer Snake, who Winnipeggers have literally embraced as one of their own.

On July 9 at Canad Inns Stadium, hundreds of Winnipeg Blue Bomber fans carried Beer Snake above their shoulders or even cradled Beer Snake in their arms.

Winnipeggers have never embraced a conventional politician with so much passion. Katz and Wasylycia-Leis have never been carried above the shoulders of an adoring crowd. All that cheering at city hall last Sunday was for Jonathan Toews, and that's because he won the war in Afghanistan -- not because he's running for mayor.

In fact, I have it on good authority that Katz and Wasylycia-Leis have never even tried to stage-dive, not even during the early '90s when everyone else on the planet was trying out the manoeuvre.

The reason is obvious: They both knew they could never be loved the way Beer Snake is adored by the masses.

If charisma is a factor, you have no choice but to elect Beer Snake. Adulation, thy name is Snake.

3. Beer Snake has a plan.

ALMOST halfway through the mayoral campaign, it's impossible to discern what Judy Wasylycia-Leis stands for, other than she most certainly is not Sam Katz.

But after more than six years of watching Katz in office, trying to discern the incumbent mayor's vision for the city is even murkier. "Four more years of trying to spend $7 million of public funds on a private water park" is not much of a campaign slogan.

Beer Snake, however, is completely certain of its intentions. It exists solely for the purpose of growing larger. It wants nothing other than to be the longest polypropylene python on the planet.

In case you have not yet noticed, "plastic serpent" sounds a lot like "public servant." Beer Snake didn't will itself into existence simply to drip watery suds on the shoulders of the fans in Section S.

No, Beer Snake's spontaneous arrival on this planet must be seen as something momentous and perhaps even divinely inspired.

A few millennia ago in the Garden of Eden, a famous snake gave humanity the gift of knowledge. Beer Snake is simply here to take it back.

If a sense of purpose counts for anything, you simply have no choice: It will be Beer Snake for mayor this fall.

This message is approved by Labatt's, the official agent for Beer Snake.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition July 18, 2010 A3