After a long, boring campaign between two mediocre candidates, dopey debates, lackluster proposals, blather, hypocrisy, and fake alternatives, we needed some excitement—we're entitled!—and we got it. Mrs. Sandler came out swinging, Mrs. Gabriella shook her cane. The hand-bag wielding Golden Girls of Century Village were fighting mad. The Reverend Jesse was out there preachifyin', the sanctified Alcee Hastings was laying it down like Uncle Remus, and then this morning I got this email from Don Rodrigues:

8 a.m. Early 21st century

Dear God of sweet revenge let thine investigators find impropriety in the districts of Jeb Bush. Lord of sweet justice, open the eyes of the public to ballot box stuffing, do show union strong-arming, gerrymandering, all manner of lasciviousness including roll-calls full of already dead and retired New Yorkers and Canadians; Heavenly Father of glorious luck do clear the decks of democracy by bearing witness to some act of chicanery that did swing the State of Florida for the War Party. Amen.

At long last, a miracle! Our Lady of West Palm Beach: having given up on politics, we now turn to the local gods, the genii loci of the Golden Girls belt. Etc, etc, etc.

Up until Tuesday evening—Butterfly-ballotnacht—I was under the impression that the reason every politician wanted to seem as centrist as possible, was that the U.S. of A. had become so homogenized, sanitized, demographically cuisinarted and blanded-out that we all basically wanted the same thing: The United States of Consumerism. I figured we were all in search of our national Mall of America, but when we got there all we found was the "howling beast on the borderline that separated you from me."

The grisly truth of this election (and I predicted it here first) is that we are going through a national nervous breakdown. We're the United Schizophrenics of America. We're E Pluribus Two-um. We're torn in two, severed, divided, and, at this moment, literally split down the middle in equal parts. We're not just "divided on the issues," we're cut in two like Solomon's baby. We're two countries: two-tone, split-screen, bi-gender, two-tier. We're the two-headed entity that don't agree on nothin'. We're ready to bust apart.

The U.S. of A. is too big anyway. It's a red giant about to turn into a supernova. The Big One just got too big for its britches and its ready to split at the seams. Let's face it, we're ready for mitosis, baby. So let's split the atom, cut the cake, shuffle the deck and deal ourselves two different hands.

Hey, it's not all that crazy. This way everybody wins. The red-colored states get their automatic weapons, vouchers to the White Supremacist Academy and Alfred E. Newman for President (did you catch the cover of the Nation last week—check it out on the Web). The blue states would get all the touchy-feely, pinko, politically correct rhetoric they want, plus Frankenstein for President.

A Modest Proposal

1)Let's have two heads of state. Why not? There's precedents for it all over the place, oh yeah. Tribal people are as crazy about the idea of two as any Structuralist professor at the Sorbonne. The Romans did it, the French did it, even the Stoly-sucking Soviets did it. The Roman republic had two consuls to govern Rome. That's right. In the French Revolution there were two guys (at least) running the abattoir, right? (Sorry, my history's getting "fuzzy.") More recently, you could point to Bill and Hillary.

Okay, say these two don't get along. This brings me to my second proposition:

2)Let's have two kingdoms. We'll have the Kingdom of the North and Left (also the kingdom of women, blacks, the gunless, and anyone not making $300,000 a year); and then we'll have the Middle Kingdom Plus Dixie (sometimes known as Marlboro Country, a mythical billboard state of mind). The Duke of Dixie would rule over the gun-toting, misogynist, racist, and just plain fed-up segment of the population.

The do-it-yourself segment of Thumbsucker's Corner
Here's your opportunity to fill in your own descriptions of what the inhabitants of the two kingdoms might want—i.e., liberal delusions and redneck fantasies. Email your ballots no later than November 13 to be hand-counted in the next column.

Okay, it's Friday afternoon and I have to stop, knowing nothing more than I knew three days ago. If anything, I know less. But just to confuse you further, let me recapitulate!

As of now, Bush has 246 electoral votes, Gore has 260. Okay folks, first let's look at Scenarios #s1 & 2: If Bush wins Florida, he'll have 271. If Gore wins Florida, he'll have 285. Then there's Scenario # 3. If Bush actually wins Florida but loses New Hampshire on a recount, he'll still only have 267. Under a subsidiary of this scenario, Gore would win Florida and Oregon and pick up New Hampshire, giving him—heaven help us—271. Under my favorite scenarios (let's call them Scenarios #s 4 and 5), Bush loses Florida but wins Oregon (7) plus recounts in Wisconsin (11) and New Mexico (5) giving him 269, while Gore wins Florida, but loses Oregon and New Hampshire (plus Wisconsin on a recount) and ends up with—that's right!—269. On the other hand.... Ah!!!!!!

Talk about fuzzy math! I know, I know, there really is such a thing as fuzzy math, but it has to do with automotive air-cooling systems—this is about Melt-Down City.