This is an

important election year and every vote counts.

It is almost

time for you to go out to the polls, Mr and Mrs. John Q. Public, and make

your voice heard. The following is a rundown of important races that must

be decided and the opinions expressed in this column are not the opinions

of anyone else at this publication. Obviously.

Battle for

the White House:

Though many

people see this as a two-man race, there are actually several other candidates

vying for a chance to be your next president. Pat Buchanan, Ralph Nader

and Harry Browne are three men who don't have a clue and stayed in the

election thus far, while Gore and Bush have a slightly bigger clue and

more money and polls behind them.

If you don't

like any of these choices, join the club. Your only other option is to

write a name in. You could write my name in, but it wouldn't count. Please

do it in 12 years, which is the next election in which I would be eligible

to be president.

My suggestion

is to write in Jeb Bartlett, the fictional president on TV's "The

West Wing." More people like him than Gore and Bush supporters combined

and if the presidency is going to be scripted, how about having an Academy

and Emmy award-winning writer writing it.

Battle for

getting Coverdell's chair:

Paul Coverdell

died before the completion of his Senate term and was replaced by former

Gov. Zell Miller. Republicans were up in arms that a Republican seat would

be filled by a Democrat and are now trying to get Mack Mattingly elected.

They'd have a better chance if it was Don Mattingly.

Say what you

want about Miller, but people liked him and he did give us the HOPE grant.

That paid for most of my education as well as millions of other students.

When you give, you shall receive. If it goes to a runoff, like some pundits

believe, Mattingly will get pounded even worse.

A funny write-in

idea, though, is Caesar. He was in the Senate before being stabbed in

the back. Who knew that history would repeat itself over and over for

thousands of years? And since that is true, does that mean we're going

to have another war with the French?

I don't know

much about the local races and wouldn't want to be unfair since this a

local paper. I do have one question, though: Do we need to have a Republican

coroner, and does that mean he won't bury the Democrats as well? I mean,

that's like saying, "We can't go to that bank, it's got those dang

Libertarian tellers. The way they give me my money makes me so dang mad.

And don't get me started about them Democratic people at the Post Office."

Liquor By The

Drink a.k.a The Red Lobster Referendum: There are a few counties in the

state that do not serve liquor by the drink and Fayette County is one

of them. You may like liquor, you may not, and truthfully that isn't really

the issue. The issue is giving everybody their personal freedom to make

that choice (like you're supposed to have in America) and getting the

things that this county wants.

We would have

a Red Lobster here if we had liquor by the drink and I know that lots

of people want a good seafood restaurant here.

The other thing

about liquor by the drink is that it stops all of these restaurants from

making margaritas with wine. That is just nasty. If you've had one, you

know what I'm talking about and if you haven't tried one, don't bother.

Some people say that if there is liquor by the drink, more people will

drive drunk. To that I say, then open a liquor store where people can

drink in the privacy of their own homes and not have to drive anywhere.

I don't mean

to be flip. Drunk driving is an issue, but most people are good citizens

who wouldn't drive drunk anyway. By that I mean very few people make a

conscious decision to go out and drive drunk. Just because they'll have

an option to have liquor with their dinner doesn't mean they're automatically

going to go Otis Campbell on everybody and end up completely sauced.

Vote your conscience

on this issue and remember that you have to go to the Depot to vote for

it or against it.

Next Tuesday

marks a day to celebrate one of our most valued freedoms, the freedom

to vote. Speak your mind and head out to the polls. I'll see you there.

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