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In This Issue

• Election 2032: In which intrepid itinerant Benway Wharfinger reports his Chronicle of a Most Vacuous Contest
• Partying Hard with Lee Bollinger
• From the Archives: Volume 12, Number 3 — October 15, 1997
• Sarah Palin: The Next Elbridge Gerry?!
• Your Handy-Dandy Schematic for Bailout 2008
• TARGET(TM) Children's Music Festival Probably Enjoyed by Someone. Possibly by Children.
• OUR SCHOOL IS COLUMBIA; OUR LIEGE IS KALI-MA
• John Jay Food Exposed—through Science!
• A Very Sarah Palin Halloween Special
• Do-It-Yourself Particle Accelerator!
• 40s on 40 Through the Ages: A Thought Experiment
• White-Collar Hobos Gentrify Public Parks
• Costumes that Should Not be Sexy
• Non-Voters: The “Other” Demographics
• Playing in a Puddle of Predictions
• Where to Trick and how you'll be “Treated”
• There's No Place Like The GOP
• Partnership for a "Free Drugs!" America
• The Staff of 24.2
• THEY Watch

Jochen Kang

Despite the single greatest effort to get out the vote in history, and the largest ever body of registered voters, there are several key demographics that will not be voting this November 4th. Listed below are the voting abstinent and their rationale:

Germaphobes: For no political reasons, these paranoid self-sanitizers will stay home for fear of contracting the diseases of their fellow constituents. Said one non-voter, attributing potential contagion to "all the sick people coming in and out of the booths," adding, "also the Dutch. Who knows what's been on their fingers."

Children Under 6: This 8 percent of the American population is entirely unaware they are constitutionally prohibited from taking part in the election. They will decline instead because they still believe in a future world led by Barney and the Cookie Monster, that uses gumdrops as currency, and settles conflicts with spaghetti. Citing Rousseau, this demographic believes that voting only further distances them from the happy "noble savage."

Old Jews: Verklempt with the gantze mishugaas of the electoral system, these farblondzhet bubbahs and zaydes have accepted their yiddisher mazel and don't want to make a big tsimmis. Voting, especially in Florida, was takeh a tcheppening occasion, like being schtupped by the American government. They are also farbissen with the two farfrumt chnyok candidates. Nu?

Your Friends: This demographic can be divided into two groups: those who argued with you for the sake of argument, and those who got political with you when that girl with the Obama button was around. Election day is about drinking when Wolf Blitzer "calls" a state, not about walking up early, lines, and participating in democracy.

Bartenders: Many voters drive to the polls thinking, "screwed if you do, screwed if you don't." These noble servers recognize election day as one of the two or three busiest of the decade, as the faithless in the future drown their sorrows. Similarly, pimps and madams may stay at home on Tuesday.

Animals: The animal kingdom is torn: formerly Obama-supporting aquatic life have in the recent months turned away from the Democrats and their bipartisan treatment of offshore drilling. Arctic mammals, while environmentally threatened by McCain's plans for ANWAR, are still enticed by the promise of more Alaskan jobs, and the subsequent influx of workers' edible families. Birds can't understand politics.

John McCain: This demographic has become increasingly disenchanted with the McCain campaign, showing signs of exhaustion concerning the Republican's relentless advertising, and having so far refused to show any faith in or sympathy with Sarah Palin. It is thought that the commitment and enthusiasm of this single demographic could determine the outcome of the entire presidential race.