For those unfamiliar with California politics, March Fong, Matt Fong's mother, was then the California Secretary of State (elections, corporate registrations, etc.). She was a Democrat, as was my father, who was then the chief hatchetman for then California Assembly Speaker Jesse (Big Daddy) Unruh, who was likewise a Democrat.
They were both then divorced and sort of dating, though my father told me later that it wasn't serious and that it was a great means of keeping tabs on, and staying ahead, of the political forms of my many practical jokes (the word is "sophomoric"). It wasn't so much that I was wild as that, being a politician's kid who grew up with politicians constantly underfoot (my godfather was Phil Burton), smart and curious, I knew far more than was safe. I used to creep out of bed at night and huddle in the hallway listening to politicians plot and conspire in the proverbial smoke-filled room (my father's study).
Which means I could do some pretty good impersonations to pull off stunts like the Alioto/Piazza de Mussolini one described above.
As for Ms. Rat, I later learned that there was a group of UC Santa Cruz coeds who were more than casually interested in my practical jokes (ordaining all the students at my college as ministers in the Universal Life Church for an April Fools Day joke - the first day of class for the Spring 1969 quarter was Monday, April 1, bombarding the security kiosk every Halloween with water balloons launched by a three-man slingshot made of surgical tubing, etc.). So they talked to my male and female friends to find out what I was up to.
I'd have gone looking for them had I known about it at the time - I might have gotten laid more often. But March Fong and my father didn't let on about that until years later.