Bush Schmush, Kerry Schmerry: Shut up and Start Pedaling
9/13/04
By John Kelso, Austin American Statesman
Who says Bush and Kerry supporters can't learn to settle their differences without automatic weapons?
Tim Pletcher and Jim Moore go round and round at work about who is the larger slime ball, Kerry or Bush. Sound familiar? Pletcher is the chief operating officer at S3 Matching Technologies on Loop 360, and Moore is the PR guy.
"His whole thing is 'Anybody but Bush,' and mine is, 'OK, then, what's your game plan?' " said Pletcher, 37, a former Marine and a Bush supporter.
"I just can't handle Bush," said Moore, 52, a Kerry guy and the co-author of a book called "Bush's Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential." "I just can't handle the stuff he's doing and the lies he's telling with a straight face, man. (Iraq) is so much like Vietnam. It's like Vietnam without the trees."
"Oh, my God, they argue about it," said Jack Holt, S3's CEO. "It's amazing we're all friends."
To settle their differences, at 9:30 this morning Pletcher and Moore will square off in a 30-mile bike race. The pedaling starts at Volente Beach, winds through the hills, and ends up at the Oasis.
If Pletcher loses, he has to let his close-cropped hair grow until the end of December and put a Kerry-Edwards bumper sticker on his Suburban.
If Moore loses, he has to get a "high and tight" Marine haircut out at Camp Mabry every two weeks until December and put a Bush bumper sticker on his Toyota.
Neither man is relishing the indignity of these punishments.
"Since I was 15 years old, I haven't gone three months without a haircut," said Pletcher, who gets a Marine buzz cut out at Camp Mabry every two weeks. Pletcher worries that if fellow Marines see a Kerry sticker on his truck, they'll salute him with a finger.
"I'd have people going by thinking, 'What the heck is that on your truck, Jarhead?' " he said.
"I've got a household problem," Moore said. "My wife and daughter may not even let me park my truck in the driveway with a Bush-Cheney sticker on it." Moore, by the way, is no relation to filmmaker Michael Moore, although he did appear briefly in "Fahrenheit 9/11" being interviewed about his book.
Pletcher, who rides a bicycle up to two hours a day, wants to whip Moore's tail so badly that he's hired a coach from Carmichael Training Systems in Colorado Springs. Chris Carmichael is Lance Armstrong's coach.
Moore is no slouch, either. He's been running marathons since he was a teenager and can still string together several sub-6-minute miles.
Moore points out that Pletcher has gone overboard on this deal.
Jim Moore and Tim Pletcher, CTO, "Duke it Out" Before the Big Race (Pletcher is the Eventual Victor)
"I've created a monster with this guy," he said. "He has this wireless heart monitor connected to his computer that he wears on his bike, which is recording his cadence and his speed and everything else. And I'm taking Centrum Silver and skipping wine with dinner."
"All of Tim's gadgets are worth more than Jim's bike," Holt said. "It's an old steel-framed clunker."
At work, Moore is the lone Mohican in an office that hates Mohicans. Like Pletcher, Holt is a former Marine. The two share an office, and the ceiling is decorated with a camouflage net. On the wall you'll see a photo of two Marines in combat fatigues holding up a homemade cardboard sign that says, "@#$& Michael Moore: Go Bush."
To goad Moore, Holt and Pletcher put a map of the blue and red states on the wall where Moore sits. The map shows the results from the 2000 presidential election. Meanwhile, Moore has no backers at work.
"We had somebody who was working here who was on his side of the fence, but she went on to another opportunity," Tim said. "So he can be on an island, from time to time."
Not that Moore cares. He hopes to see the day when Pletcher has to let his hair grow out like a hippie.
"If nothing else, he's going to end up with a totally out-of-style mullet," he said.
OK, guys. Shut up and start pedaling.