Recently, Zack Exley wrote an entry at Huffington Post entitled Time to Get Off the Bus. It is about the joint venture between NewAssignment.net and Huffington Post to get more citizen journalists covering the 2008 Presidential election.

Zack was also a cofounder of the New Organizing Institute which is doing a training in Washington DC right now. As part of the training, teams were formed to promote different fictional characters running for President. So, in the spirit of Off the Bus, I’m going to go way off the bus and present my fictional coverage of the campaigns.

The first candidate that I heard from was Lisa Simpson. Lisa’s supporters have a Facebook group up and can be reached at info@lisa2008.com. I’ve received several emails from the campaign urging me to spread the word. In the latest WOTB polls shows Lisa getting about 28% of the vote and running in second place. I learned about this from a friend on a regional blogging list.

The second candidate that I heard from was Stewie Griffen. I have not been able to find contact information or a Facebook group for Stewie. However, they are up on MySpace. Their website is taking advantage of some nice Blue State Digital features, and it isn’t a surprise that I heard about it from Clay Johnson. Unfortunately, they are going nowhere in the WOTB polling, showing up at 5th place with a whopping 1%.

Mr. Burns 2008 campaign was the third that I heard about. A friend of mine whom I know from a mailing list about the 2008 Presidential election contacted me about Mr. Burns campaign. Their Facebook group can be found here. In WOTB polling, they are currently in 3rd place with 21% of the vote.

The most recent campaign to catch my attention is Maggie for America. I found Maggie’s campaign when I stopped by at Rosalyn Lemieux’s page on Facebook. Maggie’s Facebook group is here. Rosalyn is the executive director of New Organizing Institute and having her in your Facebook group counts for a lot. It isn’t surprising that Maggie is leading in the WOTB poll with 36% of the vote.

Through more searching I’ve also found a campaign site for Krusty the Klown. Again, Roz links to his campaign on Facebook. Krusty is running fourth with 14% of the vote.

The blog that seems to be capturing most of the action on this campaign is the NOI Blog. I am picking up rumors that Homer Simpson, and Apu Nahasapeemapetilon are running. Yet details of their campaigns have remained elusive.

As of the deadline for this article, none of the campaigns have responded to inquiries about their positions, schedules or the food that they are eating on the road. Time and interest permitting, a followup will be posted.