Like most Americans, I’ll bet you’re sick and tired of the liberal media telling you to vote for Ralph "Watermelon" Nader (you know, the one who’s green on the outside and red as the blood of an American killed by godless Communists, draped in the red flag of Communism, on the inside!). If so, this article will be a welcome relief: its only purpose is to ask you to vote for a team you won’t hear much about in the liberal media: Bush/Gore 2000.

The most important reason for you to vote Bush/Gore is, naturally, because theirs is the only team that will continue the economic growth that has benefitted me and all the people around me so greatly. As the great John F. Kennedy used to say, "A rising yacht lifts everyone on it." Like all sons of wealthy men, Kennedy understood the importance of not rocking the yacht. That means, when you’re hanging on to the lifeboat trying to get your grubby hands to lift your grubby body out of the grubby water, you should have the decency to let go. "Let go, Jack, just let go!" like in The Titanic. Don’t rock my yacht, Jack.

So you say, "I didn’t see that movie, Sam." OK, sheltered one, if Kate Winslet can’t convince you, let’s try the great Kang and Kodos. When our illuminous overlords came to share their philosophy, they didn’t mince words. "It’s a two-party system," they said. Want to vote for a third party? "Go ahead, throw away your vote!"

As Kang, Kodos, and the New York Times have all said, there are clear choices in this election, and the American people deserve an uncluttered playing field. No, I don’t know what you slackjawed knuckleheads have done to deserve that, either. But let’s unclutter the playing field, and look at your two choices this year.

There’s the War on Drugs. Who do you trust to prosecute fully the sleazy minorities who use drugs in spite of our cleverest advertising campaigns, while protecting the right of wealthy white kids to snort, smoke, and shoot in their irresponsible youth? Would you rather have a former pothead or a former cokehead fighting the War on Drugs?

And then there’s the high price of oil. Do you believe the guy with close family connections to Texas oil companies would be better suited to fight Big Oil, or would you rather have the guy with close family connections to California oil companies? I know which one I’d prefer; how about you?

So those aren’t big enough issues for you? How about communism vs. fascism? Yes, it’s just like the last Good War all over again: Bush, whose grandfather’s pals supported the Nazis, or Gore, whose father’s pals supported the Communists?

What’s that, you say you don’t want to hear about the candidates’ personal lives? You want to hear about the real important issues, like abortion and tax cuts? The ones with even bigger differences than the already big differences whose bigness has just been so bigly illustrated by my big examples?

Bush, that wicked manservant of the Christian Right, wants to restrict poor women’s right to abortion. On the other hand, Gore, that evil slime-spawn of the Godless Left, wants to protect rich women’s right to abortion. Where do you stand on this vital issue?

Bush, that son of a billionaire, wants to give a big tax cut to the wealthy, with pennies for the middle class. Gore, on the other hand, that son of a millionaire, wants a big tax cut on the wealthy, with nickels for the middle class. True, it’s not quite a dime’s worth of difference, but four cents is nothing to sneeze at.

"But Sam," you protest, "aren’t those issues going to be determined more by the Congress than the President? After all, only Congress has the power…" I’m sorry, I forgot the rest of what you protested. Something about Congress. Look, you don’t have to listen to me, take it from Senator Palpatine himself: "Congress is weak. We need a new President, a strong President." If you can’t trust Senator Palpatine, who can you trust?

All right, let’s keep trying. How about some really big issues, even bigger than the big ones I’ve embiggened already? Let’s have the candidates speak on their differences in their own words, or at least in the words of their highly paid speechwriters.

What could be bigger than trade policy? Bush says, "I reject protectionism and isolation." Gore says, "Protectionism will only protect us from prosperity itself." Clearly these are two very different candidates: Bush speaks in the first person, while Gore speaks about protectionism in the third person. On the other hand, Bush’s language is terse and direct, while Gore’s is flowery and repetitive. Important differences, folks!

OK, maybe war could be bigger than trade policy. What do the candidates think of expanding the almost-victorious-yes-we’re-really-close-this-time-I-can-feel-it War on Drugs to Colombia? Well, each of them understandably has trouble actually talking about it (rumor has it that even mentioning the drug problem makes Bush’s nose bleed). But Bush’s advisors say we should send military aid to Colombia to fight the drug supply. Gore’s advisors, on the other hand, take the opposite position and say we should fight drugs in Colombia with military aid.

"But gee, Sam, it doesn’t seem like those differences are quite so large as you say and I blah blah and furthermore yadda yadda…" All right, fickle one, if you want even bigger issues than that, let’s talk ideology. Let’s talk about which party is really representing the people, rather than the chattering class-warfare special-interest elitist power-hungry big business that the other party represents.

Do you want the party that accepts hundreds of thousands of dollars in soft money at its convention and starts with the letter ‘D,’ or the one that accepts soft money and starts with the letter ‘R’?

Do you prefer the party that wants to increase the military budget by several billion dollars and is represented by an elephant, or the one that wants to increase the military budget and is represented by a donkey?

Do you want welfare programs abolished by an eight-letter party or a ten-letter party?

Do you prefer the party that claims God is on its side and religion doesn’t have a large enough role in public life, or the other one?

Do you want the party that will fight strongly to expand NAFTA, or the one that will strongly fight to expand NAFTA?

But you claim that these enormous differences don’t impress you, and then you start talking about voting for a third-party candidate, and I feel like I just haven’t gotten through to you. Don’t you understand that you’re wasting your vote if you don’t pick the winner? When liberals are putting $100 on red and conservatives are putting $150 on black, why must you persist in putting a dollar on that funky green square?

Let me explain to you how our electoral system works. A vote for Nader is a vote for Bush, because if Nader had not been on the ballot, you would have voted for Gore. Similarly, a vote for Buchanan is a vote for Gore, because you would have voted for Bush if Buchanan had been tied to the top of a tall building by John Hagelin’s supporters. A vote for Harry Browne is a vote for Bush Sr., because had Browne been sent into the distant future in a space capsule, you would have voted for Buchanan, and since a vote for Buchanan is a vote for Gore, you’re actually voting for Bush Jr. But due to the complexities of time travel, you actually end up supporting Dubya’s father. A vote for Socialist David McReynolds is a vote for Warren Harding, by a simple calculation that we leave to the reader.

A vote for Gore is, of course, a vote for Bush, and conversely. For you see, if Gore had not been on the ballot, then Bush probably wouldn’t have been on the ballot either, and so you would have voted for Gore anyway, which means you’re actually voting for Bush. A vote for Mickey Mouse remains a vote for Mickey Mouse, due to the peculiarities of the Electoral College, which are too cumbersome to explain with only a few paragraphs left.

Now as November whatever approaches, and you get set to enter that polling booth, close the curtain, and pull the trigger, I want you to remember something: this election depends on you doing the responsible thing for billionaires across the country. Whether you choose Bush or Gore, Gush or Bore, Lush or Whore, it’s your voice that matters.

So choose or lose, kids. This election is all about you. Exercise the rights our Founding Fathers fought and died to prevent you from having.

Or don’t. Just don’t vote for Nader.