DASCHLE SEEKS LEADERSHIP ROLE AT KFC

Butts Heads With Store Manager Over Extra-Crispy Issue

Outgoing Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle announced today that he has begun working at a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant in Bethesda, Maryland and intends to seek a leadership role there.

“The workers here at KFC are crying out for a leader,” Senator Daschle said in a press conference outside the restaurant, which is situated between a Blockbuster Video and a Lenscrafters store in a nondescript strip mall. “I am that leader.”

Capitol Hill insiders were stunned to learn that Mr. Daschle, who up until Tuesday’s elections was the most powerful man in the United States Senate, would accept a role at a takeout poultry restaurant.

But the Washington rumor mill had already predicted such a move on Wednesday, when Mr. Daschle and outgoing House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt were spotted getting copies of ther resumes made at a Kinko’s in Georgetown.

While Senator Daschle did not lay out a specific plan for securing a leadership position at KFC, it was clear that he intended to make the crispiness of KFC’s “Extra Crispy” chicken a central issue in his campaign.

“This is America, and we are capable of making crispier chicken than the so-called ‘Extra Crispy’ chicken we are making today,” Daschle said.

Despite Senator Daschle’s forceful rhetoric, there were signs that his ascendancy to a leadership role at KFC could be blocked by the store manager, Carla, who seemed resolutely unimpressed with Mr. Daschle’s job performance thus far.

“Instead of standing in front of the store talking to reporters, I’d like to see him get his ass back there behind the fryer,” Carla told reporters.