The candidate will be making an open statement. He will be addressing  two major campaign issues today. Then the candidate will take questions from members of the Internet attending. Rhetorical questions are  especially welcomed. The candidate will then respond with rhetorical answers in time, determined by his pressing schedule (the fall TV season). 

Ladies and gentleman, the next president of a network,  Marvin Kitman

 KITMAN: First of all,  I want to address the issue of the significance of     one of my most feared opponent' s,  Jamie Tarses,  dropping out of the race  on the eve of the first ever straw poll for network president (Aug.29,1999). Awesome, as they  say in LA.

There are those who say she was tired of fighting the male chauvinist pigs at ABC, that she wanted to be reborn as an independent producer, following the career path of her mentor at NBC, Warren Littlemind. The real answer is that she realized that Marvin Kitman entering the race her job was hanging by a thread anyway. By throwing herself from the seat of  power, she would be cutting her losses. I hope she thought this through thoroughly. We regret that she did not let the people decide. On the upside , it's one down and three to go. The Bloomberg/Braun/Fili/Bornstein ticket at ABC has more to fear than fear itself, which in LA is quite a lot.

Next, I want to address one of the most important questions plaguing western civilization today.  Which network presidency am I running for?

Nobody likes to reveal his campaign strategy so early in the game. For  Wall Street analysts,  stockholders, as well as current office holders, I will only say at this juncture it's a major network with three letters (not counting UPN). And  that I am running for all four major networks at once   (ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox), in order to keep my options open.

I also will say that if elected to more than one network presidency at the same time , as Judy Merkel of Rochester, a member of the Kitman for President  braintrust,  has advised, I will not serve at one of them.  I stand by  this Gen. Tecumseh Sherman-like  promise -- Unless the networks are merged.

There are those who say this is a pipe dream, a  quixotic attack on the network bastions, that I am a Marvin Quixote tilting at network  windmills, with his Sancho Panzas (the silent majority, his millions of  readers of his syndicated column and supporters of better TV everywhere) wanting to save TV from itself .  It has been brought to my attention there are even those who have no idea how I could possibly get elected?  What are the mechanics of this unprecedented election? When will it take place?

My advisers have argued that I have already been too candid about my  election plans. There is a vicious Stop Kitman Movement out there,  looking to take any advantage. At this point, I can only say that my  election strategy is in the best tradition of corporate democracy.

 As you know, each network is publicly traded.  Members of the public   can actually run for office in a corporation in theory and be elected by popular demand.  My secret plan is as follows. 1. I buy a minority interest in each of the networks (one share),  said shares,  of course,  being put in a blind trust in my wife's name, to avoid conflict of interest charges. 2. Then  I petition the pension funds who control the majority of shares of the  networks. Pension funds represent the people. Most of them are in the No Longer 18-34's, the demo that has the most money, whatever the stupid

Madison Ave. agencies think.  I stand for supporting programming of interest to all people, regardless of demographic groups. But I have an especially strong following with pension holders, retirees, intellectuals, people who read books, lovers of quality series.  I am the candidate who has gone out on the limb calling for a ban on laugh tracks, reducing the number of commercial interruptions in drama,  not canceling quality shows  and making sitcoms that are funny. These are issues all people can agree on , especially retirees  and pension holders, the coming wave of the future.  Ask any baby boomer.

The powerful pension funds are interested in good corporate government, my campaign strategists tell me. They want things to run smoothly.  They don't want problems. You can't have a  docile population when everybody is continually annoyed by those commercial interruptions, especially the loud ones. They don't want moronic laugh tracks telling you when to laugh at something that is not funny. They want a TV that is easy,  even if it puts everybody to sleep.

With the votes of the real big money people behind me,  I will be able  to deal with the real  public issues long neglected. This is after all the public airwaves the networks have been using to make our insanely high profits . And even though profits have been grossly obscene for roughly  50 or 60 years, it doesn't make it right what's been going on.

The other important plank in my secret campaign strategy is finding somebody who will get Vernon Jordan to put in a good word for me. He'll be making a few phone calls and before you know it Jack Welch will be begging me to come over to head up  NBC in order to avoid a costly stockholder suit.  According to the architect of this secret take-over plan, noted New Jersey economist  Dennis Ainsworth, I will be weighing carefully similar offers from Michael Eisner at ABC, Mel Karmazin at CBS and my old school chum Rupert Murdoch  (we went to the same Talmud Torah in Bensonhurst).

A few technical details still have to be worked out in the plan.

At this point, I am not giving any timetable for all of this to happen.  There are lot of changes that have to be made.  Keep them guessing is the strategy  the campaign will be following. The Kitman movement is like Mao Tse-tung's guerillas:  give them the land by day , but infiltrate by night, while the networks sleep in their limos.

 This is a long haul. I am not kidding myself. It will take four years or possibly more for the people to win this one. Look at Pat Buchannan. He has been running for President for 12 years. And  he had all of CNN facilities supporting him with free campaign  air time. I'm running in an old- fashioned medium, print.

The only real problem facing the Kitman candidacy, as the Arthur B. Schlesinger Jr. of my campaign,  historian Richard B. Bernstein, has warned : "Just don't get caught with any interns."

I can only say now that this presidential campaign is going to much more interesting than the New Hampshire primaries, and the conventions that follow.  This is an election that really matters to the average American today. This is your life, one that you're going to be involved in every night for the rest of your life. Administrations come and go,  but your TV set is always on.

Power to the people, as my  staff ghostwriter Christopher Daly of Bayside has explained.

One last word , everything I have just said is off the record.