There Are Better Ways To Settle 2000 Election

Isn’t it disgusting that we Americans can’t settle our political bickering without hiring lawyers to choke up the legal system like a clogged sewer line?

And that’s just the Randy Shaw debacle.

But that’s a bed of petunias compared to our still-undecided presidential race.

To recap some of the history-making events of the past nine days:

1. Democrat Al Gore’s presidential victory train derails in Florida when thousands of West Palm Beach County retirees mistake their voting slips for Publisher’s Clearinghouse sweepstakes ballots.

2. Republican George W. Bush responds to his narrow Florida lead by immediately breaking out in hideous facial boils and becoming the GOP’s Elephant Man-elect.

3. Now the nation waits for Florida’s absentee votes to trickle in from Chicago cemeteries and for the Florida Supreme Court to rule on deporting professional crisis parasite Jesse Jackson to Neptune.

Isn’t there a better way to decide who will become our next president?

Of course there is.

In New Mexico, for example, rumor has it that election dead heats can be settled over a game of Twister. So here are a few other entertaining ways to break the Bush-Gore deadlock: When it comes to real men solving their differences, you can’t beat the epic pool hall battle between Paul Newman and Jackie Gleason in “The Hustler.”

Why not bring Texas George Dubya and Fast Al to Spokane’s posh Far West Billiards, 1001 W. First, to meet over a field of green felt?

“They can play right there,” Far West manager Chico Hernandez says, pointing to a table near a window facing the corner of First and Monroe. “That way everybody can watch.”

Instead of a typical pool game, Hernandez wants to see the candidates try something called Cowboy Pocket Billiards.

According to Hernandez, points are scored by sinking the one, three or five ball or by carom shots that strike any of the above balls. A game is 101 points. But all points after 91 must be made by carom shots until a player reaches 100. The final point is made by banking in the cue ball.

Fuzzy math, Chico. Better stick to eight ball. If Democrat dummies can’t negotiate a butterfly ballot, they’ll never go for something truly confusing.

Cocktails, anyone? Here’s a far simpler competition to score. Let Gore and Bush compete to see which leader can mix the best martini.

As we know, the martini is still the lubricant that greases many of our political wheels.

“A wonderful idea,” says bar manager Annette Beach, who graciously offered Spokane’s Blue Spark, 15 S. Howard, as the venue to host the event.

The first televised Presidential Martini Mix-Off will not require candidates to drink their creations. Bush, after all, swore off booze 14 years ago.

As in all drinking contests, however, Sen. Ted Kennedy will be rolled in to certify the results.

If a Martini Mix-Off is too subjective to score, a worker at the Stateline Showgirls strip joint has agreed to a more decisive alternative.

Nude vanilla pudding wrestling.

“We don’t do oil wrestling anymore,” explains a Showgirls worker who identified himself as Big Daddy.

What a sight this would be: Bush and Gore squaring off like Hulk Hogan and The Rock in a wading pool of pudding.

First one to get his face dunked loses.

“We don’t normally have guys wrestling,” Big Daddy says, adding that the strip club can probably make an exception “with the presidency at stake.”

Sure, presidential pudding wrestling sounds degrading. But after watching the mudslinging in Florida for the past week, trust me, friends, we’re almost there.