If I’m nothing, I’m gracious in defeat. I know when I’ve been beaten, and apparently my proposal to help Liberty Energy win the hearts and minds of the Imperial Valley was a piece of ... well, discarded advice.

Changing people’s perceptions about burning human waste to make energy is complicated, and for that you need professionals. I can accept that I lost out to a public relations team whose separate efforts have put a positive spin on that little Imperial Valley College budget snafu and the water transfer with San Diego that thus far is working out swimmingly for Imperial County.

Naturally they would come in No. 1 at putting a happy face on No. 2.

Still, I know poop. I’ve been intimately associated with the substance all my life, from playing with it as a babe to picking it up as a dog owner to changing it as a daddy.

I know how it works, how it smells, how it feels between your toes (that’s a story for another time), and I know how people react to it. Hey, I’ve seen “Caddyshack.” Believe me, a Baby Ruth didn’t pass these lips for well over a year.

Most important, though, I believe I have a foolproof plan to get the community to buy into Liberty’s fecal facility and its dookie-to-dollars business plan. It’s like shooting brown trout in a barrel.

I call it Operation Stanley Steamer, and it’s a strategic plan that leaves no room for human error. It’s all about outreach, branding and synergy. By taking on the issue from all ends, you leave no holes unplugged and wipe away any pretense that we’re dealing with anything but human waste.

And, yes, I wrote “ends,” “holes unplugged” and “wipe.” That’s branding, baby. Like UPS, people in the Imperial Valley need to start thinking about “What brown can do for you.”

This whole thing with Liberty putting on educational workshops isn’t going to make a difference. Workshops are for school administrators or notaries public, not for teaching people about the science of burning crap and changing minds. Besides, the folks who will come out will be the same people who picketed the county Board of Supervisors meetings and have so far helped derail the poop project.

Furthermore, unless I’m going over to Prince’s house for pancakes, for a Lake Minnetonkan cruise on the Vikings’ party boat or to a Twins game, I don’t need a pre-thaw trip to St. Paul.

Liberty Energy needs to focus its efforts in the Valley, and more specifically, our schools.

Hit the children first and the parents will fall. Who can say no to a cute little kid when he or she wants something? If we could get our wee ones to climb aboard the crap caboose, than we’d all be knee deep in sludge by Monday morning.

First thing’s first. Liberty needs a mascot. Forget that stately bell adorning its business cards. We need something animated, something top of mind, something that can translate into posters, T-shirts and plush toys.

Picture this: I’m seeing a furry, brown, fat, lumpy little bugger with an adorable smile, a cute kernel-of-corn nose, two precious peanut ears and just a sweet little lick of flame atop his head.

Print that on educational coloring books for elementary-school tykes, hand ‘em a brown crayon and, just like that, you’ve stoked the flame of interest, planted an undigested seed of knowledge. With the Children’s Fair coming up, Liberty can set up a booth and have its mascot greet families as they mill about Bucklin Park.

In weeks, “Bernie Crapola” (yeah, that’s it) will be a household name and join the pantheon of Valley-born characters like Dippy Duck, the Sun Man and that owl — oops, tecolote — that nobody seems to remember.

Didn’t I say my plan was foolproof?

There’s plenty more where that came from, including ingenuous ways to spin the fact that a sludge plant will release dioxins and trace amounts of mercury and sulphur into the environment, add particulate pollution to an already murky airshed and possibly even the occasional ton or so of ash to our landfill. At least those are some of the things Liberty officials expect from their proposed poop-to-power facility in Ontario, Canada.

Sorry I won’t be sharing any more of my brilliant ideas with you, Liberty, but you’ve taken the plunge with another, and flushed my plan down the crapper. I guess it’s like they say: money talks and well, uh ...

Just brand it, baby