Just as the summertime burn begins, things are starting to heat up again in the presidential election--or Decision 2000, Question 2000, www.vote2000.com or whatever you want to call it. We've got to start thinking about this again, folks. We're only a few months away. Hammer home, hammer home, hammer home.

Officially, and in all fifty states this time, Ralph Nader is the Green party candidate. Their convention was this weekend, and he got to have his say on one of the weekend wank fests. It might be the only time we hear any kind of extended conversation from Nader--who will be virtually ignored by the major media when the Republican and then Democratic conventions shoot off fireworks, scream their tie-bound necks off and basically try to make voting for president something like partying at the frats on the weekends--without the conspicuous underage drinking, of course.

I've always liked Nader, mostly because he's been on his Quixotic quest to reign in big business for a long time. And he's got a name that rhymes with Vader--slightly evil and sinister. You've got to have that little edge in big time politics. If they can't remember your name, you're screwed. I'm relatively close to Nader on most of his views (except for the free trade thing, but I like to look past labor unions to the big picture--Nader is more of a patriot than I), and another thing came to light that brought up one of the strange contradictions I've had with Nader for a while.

You see, Nader owns about a million bucks in Cisco stock (give or take depending on the market day), which would seem to contradict his anti-corporate rule thing. But I look at it the same way I look at my AOL stock: everyone has to retire sometime. If no one is going to give me the big cushy job that lets me retire when I'm relatively young, then I better do for myself. And besides, who truly agrees one hundred percent with their presidential pick?

Nader's got an uphill, and ultimately losing, battle ahead of him. Even though most people want more than two choices, they still have this thought in their mind that if they pick outside the two big guys, they're wasting their vote. It's a mass consciousness thing. If I'm against the majority, I must be a freak. And in a time of unprecedented prosperity, who wants to be in the minority?

I'll save my remedies for the two-party mind virus for another day. But let me outline a few things that might trigger a bit of thinking in the voter base this year:

Gas prices, gas prices, gas prices. A year ago I was paying 50% less for gas than I am now. Do you know any product that has had that kind of inflation in the last ten years? The thing about gas is it touches everything. We use gas to get everything where it needs to go. Those plastic toys from China? They gotta be shipped here. The food at the grocery store? You think it's all grown somewhere near where you live? Airlines, shipping companies, trucking companies, all that online shopping--even movie prices went up again for the big summer season.

I'm not a doomsayer, but when the grease that moves everything in the world (oil) gets way more expensive, everything gets more expensive. We've had very low inflation and unemployment numbers during our massive economic expansion of the last eight years or so. But I can see a time much like the early 90s coming. How will all of those optimistic young people who will graduate college in the next few years feel when they get out of "higher education" and find it only gets them a job serving Starbucks coffee to their likewise-struggling friends? The economy is the barometer that all presidential elections swing on, so watch out guys.

The death penalty. Why do we care about this? Because it's a moral thing. First we don't like to fight wars anymore, now we're re-thinking our views on killing criminals. If we don't want to kill (or at least put our own people in harms way) for our beliefs, why should we still be killing people who are already safely behind bars? Bush Jr. has fifteen more tests of moral character coming up in the next five months. Fifteen more executions scheduled in Texas before the election. That's a lot of looking stoic and affirming that he's not killing an innocent person with a straight face.

And finally, Gore's fundraising problems. Not that he's having problems raising money, but that maybe he's done a little extra fundraising than he should. The wrong place, wrong time, wrong type of e-mail, whatever. Traditionally, the regular voter doesn't care. Neither do I. They're all corrupt in my book anyway.

So as we all spend more and more money keeping our cars running this summer, the wanks are wagging once again. Keep one eye open, this circus might get fun after all.

Matt Worley filled up at $1.45 a gallon last week. Yesterday he saw prices were up to $1.59. What's up with that, G?