Better late than never

Great days indeed. The web troll has just stumbled into my office, its piggy little eyes glowing with a mixture of pride and imbecilic malice, and announced that it has fixed the polling mechanism on the web site. Never mind that the election was more than ten months ago. Never mind that our legal challenges have gone nowhere (we're not quite sure what happened, but our latest theory is that the orc who was supposed to file the papers took a wrong turning in a gated community outside Santa Barbara and was shot to death by a posse of trigger-happy homeowners). Never mind that in the interval the thirty-fifth largest city in the country has turned into something that looks like Isengard after an ent strike, the situation in Iraq has gone from unspeakably awful to completely hellish, and Congress has rubber-stamped a succession of laws so heinously evil and anti-democratic that even Sauron is shaking his head in disbelief. The web troll has fixed the polling mechanism, and we must all give thanks and be joyful.

Having been informed of the good news, I seized one of the heavier maces from the trophy case above my desk and chased the troll from the room before its breath could peel any more paint from the walls, then slammed the oaken door as hard as I could and did a private little victory dance. Loath though I am to give the sluggish creature any credit, I must admit that I am pleased that the poll is working. A modern, scientifically-run campaign like ours certainly needs modern, scientific tools to quantify quantifiables, measure measurables, and offer an unimpeachable rebuttal to those small-minded critics who have alleged that our candidate lacked popular appeal.

To ensure the accuracy of the results, I immediately logged on and entered a few hundred votes for Gollum. Democracy is all very well, but sometimes it's necessary for a trained political scientist to interpret the will of the people. But my mouse finger is tired now, so I leave it up to you to enter the remaining data that will confirm our historic victory. Vote early, vote often, and above all, vote Gollum.