(edit: this was written in the late 00s, and saved in this file to this date for unknown reasons. 27/08/2019)
so, there's this random person just somewhere out in the world that is heard to mutter the phrase "i'm more liberal than barbara boxer.". somebody thinks it's humorous, so they repeat it to somebody else, and before long it's blown up in the media and everybody in the world knows that this little pleb that nobody had ever heard of before had the gall to claim that they could possibly be more liberal than barbara boxer.
at first, barbara boxer was coy. they hoped everybody would forget and it would just blow over. eventually, they were issuing "no comment.". barbara was said to be "on vacation" and unable to respond to these claims for nearly a week thereafter, once it was clear that she had a challenger and was going to have to respond.
the decision was made that barbara was to take the news light-heartedly. she would approach the situation with the feel of a game of croquet, with a gentlewomanly attitude of fair sport.
the pleb, meanwhile, didn't expect this to happen. it was just a casual remark made with no desire to upset anyone and no thought of any consequences. there was no desire on the plebs part to compete with anybody and there never had been, but there was a sense of mischief, a sense of enjoying the role of the troublemaker and a bit of a twisted amount of joy in watching events turn out as planned. i guess it's almost like treating reality with the same detachment you would have to a video game.
when the video game turned real there was nothing but a sense of fear. wait a second.....this.....can't....happen....it's.....not....real...! the, the tyrannosaurus rex is coming out of the...the..tv....
nonetheless, here is what was happening, barbara boxer was issuing that she was willing to meet all challengers in terms of liberalness and has devised a set of tests that can be used as metrics of liberalness between the two participants.
the pleb had no idea. nobody really knew the pleb all that well or even where the pleb lived, nobody knew how to get in contact and inform the pleb that there had been a response. the pleb didn't pay attention to the media enough to recognize what was occurring. eventually, the message was transported.
it wasn't until the decision had been made that the epiphany occurred and the monster jumped out of the screen, initiating a survivalist response.
"ok, barbara boxer, i know that i've taken you on in this fictitious challenge to the title of High Liberal. but, my creation of the system of competition was produced as a means of ridiculing that system, certainly the prospect of the idea of barbara boxer taking on a pleb for the title of "most liberal" is sufficiently comical, and hence did so in the defense of a future attack on liberalism that has yet to come. your response of actually choosing to actively compete against me indicates an actual attachment to competition, which makes you much less liberal than me. of course, that makes me guilty of setting a trap, which would be unfair. but, your response of condemnation would be the last straw. my choice to be free thinking and make my own decisions makes me the more liberal in the face of your attempt to condemn me. this is a more sufficient metric than the tests you have devised and i would prefer to leave it at that and walk away."
it was deemed by the judges (comedy central) that this response undoubtedly crowned the pleb as most liberal and he was abducted from his home, drugged, and forced to parade before the cameras. he became a huge star.
barbara's career was over, as she was pushed out of the house and onto a cushy, seven figure job on the board of the parent company. she wrote two books and had a wonderful harem.