Nobody thought we could do this, my friends. Nobody would have believed, even six weeks ago, that we’d be celebrating here tonight. But we did it. You did it. I want to give you all my sincere thanks, from the bottom of my cold, reptilian heart.
Y’all know I come from humble beginnings. No reason to mince words; I grew up in a swamp. My mother did the best she could, scooping dirt over her eggs, and keeping scavengers away from the nest. But my childhood wasn’t exactly nurturing. The day I was born, I dug my way out of the soft, warm peat and into a harsh and unforgiving world. And I made my own way in life through the exercise of determination, stick-to-itiveness, and good old-fashioned American entrepreneurial spirit. To pay for college, I had to work part-time in a freak show on the side of the highway, wrestling a man who wore overalls and no shirt. And my opponent just wants to talk about whether I sent my tuition on time.
And those core, fundamental values are our way out of this mess that the establishment in Washington done got our country mixed up in. Folks up there think they can fix things with more government. Down here, we know what to do with government. We wait, motionless, for hours, until government comes down to the water’s edge to drink, and then we leap out, catch it by the throat or by one of its forelimbs, drag it down and hold that gosh-darn government underwater until it drowns or dies of massive blood loss. We will snap our jaws closed on taxes and spin repeatedly in a violent death roll until they are torn into pieces small enough to easily swallow.
That’s the message we’re sending up there, and that’s the message some folks’ll do anything to stop. I know about the nasty e-mails circulating that falsely portray me as a merciless predator. It was very embarrassing for my family when the Gawker posted years-old photos of me rubbing up against a submerged log. I’ll tell you again, my actions were in no way inconsistent with my positions on social issues. I was just molting, okay? I’ve endured painful and offensive insults, as my opponents have revealed their prejudices. I don’t like hearing people say that I’d make a better suitcase than a senator, but I can endure it because our mission is just.
Some people are even claiming that I am not an American alligator at all, but that I am, rather, an Egyptian Nile Crocodile, and therefore, probably a Muslim. Folks, you’ve seen my passport. You’ve seen the church where I pray. I’ve done everything I can to put this misinformation to bed, and the haters on the internet are still debating about the shape of my snout. It’s undignified and disrespectful. But this is what happens when you scare the people in charge. Every lie and every attack shows we’re getting to them. And we will prevail. We’ve waited long enough, my friends. Now is the time to lunge.
We need to put the divisiveness of the primary season behind us, and I hope the party can unite behind me against our common enemy. Because what we’re up against in November is a political culture of waste. People down here are losing their jobs and their health care and their wetlands. Things have gotten so bad that nobody even comes to hit golf balls at me when I sun myself on the eighth-hole fairway at the local country club. But meanwhile, those folks in Washington are enjoying the wasteful luxury of their mammalian metabolism. Down here, we’ve had enough of that. I’m one of you, my friends. My rage is white-hot, but my body is room-temperature, and nothing is ever going to change that.
The days are numbered for the Washington insiders, my friends. Our legs may be stubby, but we are surprisingly quick over short distances, and we’ve got their scent. There’s no way they can escape. Unless they confuse us by running in zig-zags.
