To a visitor, Albuquerque looked like any ordinary state capital. It had a courthouse, a capitol building, a police station, and a sleazy, moodily-lit Italian restaurant where crooked politicians made Faustian bargains with bloodthirsty mafiosi bank.

But there was something out of the ordinary about Albuquerque: from 1995 to 2003, no child or grown-up had had to deal with a tax hike. People wanted to know: how did Albuquerque do it?

The brains behind it all was the governor during that time, Encyclopedia Johnson. Now, Encyclopedia’s real name was Gary. But he was only called that in official state documents. Everyone else knew him as “Encyclopedia” because his brain was filled with more facts than a reference book. He was so smart that they said he should run for President, so he did. And to prove how great and smart he was, they booked him a town hall meeting with Chris Matthews, broadcast live on MSNBC. (more…)