It seems these days that only the rare event can pull MWC out of semi-retirement, but the time has come that only arrives once every four years. The air is crisp and cool, you can't drive through a small midwestern town without running into a major presidential candidate, and the airwaves are full of the Margin of Error. In today's MSNBC/Reuters/USA Today/ESPN/Disney/ABC/Coaches' Poll of the Associated Press, George W. "George" Bush leads Al W. "George" Gore by a margin of 45% to 42%. These results have a margin of error of not just 3%, but plus or minus 3%.

The thing you have to know about the margin of error is that you need never consider any other factor when looking at the poll results. It is precise and absolute and under no circumstances does it not hold. [This is what you learn in graduate Statistics programs across the land, unless you go to one where they don't actually talk about data /end{inside joke}.]

So even if MSNBC called no one but oil company executives, Yale graduates and drunken cokeheads, Bush could have nothing less than 42% and nothing more than 48% of the national electorate. That would be true even if they only polled people who never bother to vote, such as Dick Cheney. So if the CNBC/CBS/PBS/TBS/BCS/DDS/Lehrer/McNeil/NewsHour with Cokie Roberts poll has Bush at 38% with a 3% margin of error, then somebody's lying. My money is on that smarmy Tim Russert.

So since Ralph W. "George" Nader comes in at 3% and Pat W. "Adolf" Buchanan is at 1%, they are in what's known as a "statistical tie of a dead heat in which neither candidate may considered to be ahead, behind, or worth discussing." Also, by the margin of error, Buchanan may be at -2%, which means that the only folks who will vote for him are 2% of the people from some other country. I'm guessing it's France, where they've been waiting 50 years to give up control of their country to another Nazi.

Another example of a statistical tie of a dead heat is in Missouri, where Sen. John Ashcroft (R-KS) is in serious danger of being unseated by a dead guy. Among wonks, this is considered a substantial political advance by the Democrats, who up until now, at least in Chicago, only asked of their dead people that they vote.

The preceding sentence meets the requirements of the Equal Time Doctrine, which means I can spend the rest of this column railing at you morons who, saints preserve us, are probably going to put "George" Bush into the White House. I use the word "morons" not as a value judgment, but as an acronym for "People Who Are Going to Vote Republican Because You Believe All This Crap About George Bush Trusting The People While Al Gore Trusts The Government."

First of all, have you looked around at the people lately? I'll take government any day of the week. I love mankind, but, keep the people away from me.

On the upside, in the Bush White House, you'll get your money back in the big tax cut, since presidents are now allowed to set tax policy unilaterally under the recently passed Separation of Powers, Schmeparation of Powers Act. You personally will pay about 11000 fewer dollars in federal income taxes, assuming you personally earn about $300,000 personally per year. Or, if you're an average American, you'll get about 2 Diet Cokes' worth per day back. Mmmm. Caffeine. Mmmm.

Okay, to be fair, I understand how you can look at Gore and be less than inspired. The exaggerations are killing me. I mean, in the real version of the story he told at the debate, the girl in Florida didn't have a desk for two weeks, not the whole year. Isn't that bad enough? So the story was true at one point but not when Gore told it. You can say the same thing about Bush's lies. He claimed that the Gore campaign has spent more than he has running for office. That was not even close to being true when he said it, but it was true at one time. That time was 1976, when Gore spent money running for Congress while all Bush spent money on was hookers and goofy pills.

Seriously, I don't understand how you can look at, or, more to the point, listen to Bush and say, yeah, that's the guy who should be the leader of the free world. I'm not implying that just because he thinks the word is "subliminable," which even the Microsoft Word dictionary catches, that he's unqualified to be President. I'm coming right out and saying it. I don't think he could outwit a [insert most amusing inanimate object you can think of. "Toaster" was the best I could do, but award yourself bonus points if "inanimate object" made you think of Al Gore.].

And did you see Bush last night on Leno? Leno, who is obviously planning to change the name of the show to Sycophants "Backwards R" Us, asked him what embarrassing story his mother (Barbara Bush, not Mrs. Leno) would tell about him (Bush, not Leno). Bush said, "I don't know, but she might tell you the one about when my brother Marvin urinated in the steam iron." If I was Marvin, that story would cost Bush my vote. I only have one rule, and that's "Never bet $12,000 that you don't have on a dog race with a stripper who happens to be your ex-girlfriend." No, wait, that's Cheech Marin's rule from the movie Tin Cup. My rule is, "If you tell a story on national television about me urinating in a steam iron, you've lost my vote."

Anyway, I realize I didn't sway many voters, but you Bush supporters should remember the Bush campaign motto: "Hang 'em High or Let 'em Fry" - wait, sorry, that's their new criminal code simplification plan - their motto is "A Vote for Buchanan is a Vote for Bush." In the meantime, I'm guessing Mrs. Bush has a new Most Embarrassing Story to tell about George, and I bet it involves the time he used the word "urinated" on national television. As for me, I'm voting for Marvin.