Being somewhat (!) to the left of the Perfesser (OK, OK, I am an unabashed fan of the late Jeff MacNelly's Shoe, and it was just too easy a smartass remark to let go, particularly given all of the election follies discussed over the years in Shoe), I have a slightly "rosier"—if the prospect of a centrist instead of a conservative in office justifies "rosier"—view of Nader's noncandidacy for the Greens. Sure, the Greens will get someone on the ballot everywhere. But unless they can come up with someone with equal name recognition, they won't get the protest and crossover votes they did in 2000.

I was especially displeased with all of the candidates in 2000. My displeasure with Buchanan should be obvious; my grandparents were immigrants, and that's just the starting point. My displeasure with Nader is a little more difficult to explain. The greatest societal value for people like Nader is as a gadfly. We need more gadflies and fewer "yes men," regardless of the ideology involved. Becoming the "Establishment" would greatly diminish that value.

That left us with proof that the South won the War Between the States. We had, on the one hand, the Southern son of a member of the US Congress, born to power and wealth, with little ability to understand the concerns of the majority of his constituents and a tendency toward grandiose overstatement, surrounded by some really, really scary advisors and family members and underhanded runningmates. Actually, that's what we had on the other hand, too. It has turned out that Bush's advisors, cronies, etc. were even scarier than I remembered them being; but that didn't make me any happier about Tipper Gore's inability to find the First Amendment (remember PMRC? "It's an act, lady!").

This time, no such finagling. Cthulu for President—why settle for the lesser evil?