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Betty Castor coolly fingered her 9mm automatic pistol before slapping in the clip with a decisive "click." The shine of the metal was reflected in the hard glint of her eyes.
Castor slid the handgun into her waistband next to her dagger. She wore a bandolier stocked with ammunition. Across her back were strapped an assault weapon, a flamethrower and a handheld rocket launcher.
"Lock and load," Castor said calmly.
Her campaign staff was almost in tears. "Betty, please!" her campaign manager begged. "We haven't had time to test the time machine on a human subject yet. And you don't know what you might run into ..."
But the puny protest died under Castor's withering glare. "I'm not going to give Mel Martinez and the Republicans the satisfaction any more of saying that I was weak on Sami Al-Arian," she said. "I'm going back to help the 1994 version of myself get elected to the U.S. Senate."
Castor stepped up to the time portal and, without hesitation, stepped through.
A lightning bolt flashed in the parking lot of the Sun Dome at the University of South Florida in Tampa. Emerging from the smoke, 2004-Betty did a controlled roll and came up on her feet, guns in either hand. Students, startled to see what appeared to be their university president armed and stern-jawed, scattered in alarm.
The 2004-Betty marched immediately to a meeting of the USF Faculty Council. She burst into the room, which was thick with marijuana smoke. She noticed with disgust a large poster above the lectern stating, "We Hate America."
Castor let rip a burst of warning fire, and the USF faculty dived beneath tables and chairs. "There's a new sheriff in town, boys and girls," Castor sneered. "I'm here to tell you I'm getting ready to fire Sami Al-Arian. Evidence is for weenies."
A bespectacled, leering, bug-eyed professor wearing a Lenin T-shirt and sandals came forward. "I'll file a grievance! I'll file a grievance!" he whined. "You can't violate academic freedom like this!"
Castor whipped a pair of nunchakus from her utility belt and, in a whirl of motion, crippled the professor - armpit, kneecaps, groin. He was reduced to a pathetic pile of liberal jelly on the floor.
"Anybody else want their academic freedom violated?" she asked. The room was quiet.
The rest of that day, as they say, is history. The reconstruction of the campus took years.
Back in the year 2004, at the headquarters of Republican candidate Mel Martinez, staffers watched in horror as the headlines of old newspapers changed before their eyes.
Castor dithers over Al-Arian morphed magically to THE BETTY-NATOR: USF president takes decisive action, drives alleged terrorist cell from campus.
"This ruins everything," a Martinez campaign strategist sighed, putting his head in his hands. "She actually went back and blasted the entire university."
"I have to say," another admitted grudgingly, "she has us. If we don't come up with something, we might have to fight out the rest of this Senate race on ... The Issues."
A look of horror came across every face in the room.
"Wait a minute," the campaign manager, an old pro, said quietly from the corner. "I have an idea."
Sneering TV announcer: Sure, Betty Castor claims she was tough on terrorists back in 1994 when she used a flamethrower and automatic weapons in a half-hearted gesture.
(Grainy footage of Arabic men shouting excitedly while burning a U.S. flag.)
Announcer: But was Baghdad Betty really tough? Shouldn't a real leader have considered the use of tactical nuclear weapons against her own campus? Don't we deserve a U.S. senator who won't take half-measures when America's safety is on the line?
Vote Mel Martinez. Because Betty Castor loves terrorists and hates America.