"Do you think Bush is going to win?"

If you are asked this question, it is perfectly reasonable to offer this as an answer: "Kerry will win but Bush will remain president."

These are strange and terrible times and you have every right to be paranoid, believe conspiracy theories, and have faith that sinister plots are presently working in the dark to prevent Kerry from becoming our next president. As George W. Bush made so evident in the 2000 presidential election, if the people fail to vote him into the White House then he will enter it some other way.

Once again, Bush is in a very tight race, which he is more likely to lose than to win. Bush has a worsening war on his hands, an economy that is still weak despite his massive tax cuts, and a budget deficit that stuns the imagination. It doesn't stop there. Bush's job rating is now below 50 percent, and he lost all three presidential debates (at the first one he was manhandled before 62 million viewers)! All of these indicators taken together should seal his doom and ease our worries--but in our heart of hearts we know these indicators don't mean a damn thing. No matter how many more people die in Iraq, no matter how many more jobs are lost in Ohio, no matter how many poor people are registered to vote, no matter how many states Kerry actually wins, we know that Bush is not going to leave the White House. This is not just paranoia; this is simply a fact.

With two weeks to go before the 2004 election, former Vice President Al Gore--the man who defeated Bush in 2000--accused President Bush of using "an Enron jet to ferry their rent-a-mob to Florida in 2000 to permanently halt the counting of legally cast ballots" (Reuters). To this allegation, Bush's campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt dismissed Gore's "mean-spirited personal attacks and conspiracy theories." If the former vice president, and duly elected president of the United States, is paranoid then paranoia is more than justified--it is our solemn duty.