Political Fruitage

Politicians are so often accused of log-rolling that we were glad to hear they take time for a little orange-rolling.

It's become a tradition when a campaign plane takes off. A member of the press in the back rolls an orange to the candidate in the front. The fun begins when a reporter pens a message on the orange and the candidate rolls it back with a reply. (True story, as Jay Leno says, it was in the paper.)

When the temperature was over 100 in Arizona the other day, the orange-skin message to Republican vice-presidential candidate Jack Kemp was "Someplace cooler, please." To which Mr. Kemp replied with a roll of the orange: "I'm trading you to the Nader plane. It's cool and green." Referring, of course, to environmental activist Ralph Nader, presidential candidate of the Green Party.

If the no-loss-for-words Kemp can say what he wants to in the space of an orange, we could have a really pithy campaign. For longer messages there would always be a banana.