Once upon a time I was an old fashioned candidate for president. Today, I’m tacking along on the sea of internet, at the moment a viable, unlisted street corner speck.

This is not my first campaign. In ’96, I was invited on Charles Osgood’s, Sunday Morning, for a pre-set piece in New Hampshire. CBS filmed me campaigning at a gas pump. Peter Jennings saw it, knew they’d ripped me off, and gave me decent coverage on primary night. I didn’t raise money and I was ignored by the press.

“Radio,” she scoffed, we are CBS News. “We want to interview you for Charles Osgood’s Sunday Morning. What else are you doing in New Hampshire? What do you do for campaigning when you aren’t on the radio?”

I said, “I go to gas stations and hang out near the pumps,” which I hadn’t, but planned on for a potential band of kid volunteers.

“Then when a likely voter pulls up I walk over and say, “Hi. I’m Michael Levinson. I’m campaigning for president. The president of United States sits on a horse. All the rest of us stand in the dust. But I am only a candidate so why don't you go inside, get yourself a coffee while I water your horse. How many gallons should I pump?”

She laughed. I told her how I'd met and talked to Walter Cronkite years before, an experience she hadn’t; and how later that day, Cronkite introduced me to David Brinkley. I peppered her with my creative approaches to all the ’96 hot button issues.

The CBS set up by the gas pumps started out great. CBS’ solid ten minutes of interview had correspondent Bill Geist set back on his heels, blurting about my program for ending welfare, “It’s too good. It makes too much sense – they’ll never let you do that,” and ended with a super walk-away-shot as I announced Muhammad Ali my choice for VP, because Ali is a holy man, world renowned, loved by all, and our best guy for the job.

We ended with a cameo of my mother, Bill Geist’s contract camera crew asking me outright for White House jobs, to run the cameras for, “Live At the White House,” my intended nightly ninety minute after dinner united family talk show.

CBS’ high octane interview, worth thousands of votes, is alive, as out-takes, cut from view. You might get to see their archive in the event I’m assassinated. CBS showed me pumping $5 worth of regular for a potential vote. Is it any wonder their audience is gone.

ABC's tightly pre-scripted “Lev” interview, filmed first, played first, closer to a half minute snip than my request for a spontaneous 90 minutes of immaculate speech, with every line a delicate sensible rhyme, to bring me and my inspired candidacy immediate world wide fame.

I proclaimed myself the winner at ABC’s headquarter, 7:30 in the morning, because I was going to total the most votes for the least amount of money spent, which meant I could’ve won. I did spend the least and polled the most votes.

Much later, into the night, after the polls had closed, while gorging myself on assorted melons, chicken fingers, cheeses, and rare roast beef at Steve Forbes’ headquarters, everything top shelf, as though right off Forbes’ own dinner table, I almost met Joan Rivers. Joan was there, campaigning for Forbes on primary night, and she gave a classy warm up speech before Forbes came downstairs to rally his rambunctious, faithful crowd.

Later on, as Rivers was leaving the room, meandering at the door, our eyes met. She stopped, pointed her hand at me like a gun and shouted, “you,” and then, with her thumb up, over the din, “You were great.”

Absent my global warming plan, the carbon dioxide cascade will eliminate Antarctica. Mother Nature, raped enough, will repossess Long Island and Manhattan. Beluga whales will own Manhattan.