Saturday 4th November 2000
Nuffin the Hamster reports on more recent opinion polls


Seventeen points, they said. This was the hamster percentage of the vote. Why, that was incredible! It wasn't too long ago since the pollsters were talking in terms of a negligible voting minority that wouldn't affect the Presidential Election, a mere blip on the swingometer which you wouldn't have been able to detect unless you'd been employing a magnifying glass.

Was it really seventeen points? Could it really be that much?

Diddley Squat was ecstatic - as you can imagine - as I squeaked with him when news broke.

'This is a clear demonstration' he told me 'that, at last, the American voter is taking seriously the policies that a rodent president would bring to bear on the nation. Not only that but it shows clearly that we will have a significant effect in the affairs of the new Government whether it be Republican or Democrat in the 2004 election...'

Hang on! Did he say 2004? Weren't we talking, like, November 7th 2000?

'Not with only seventeen points' DS assured me 'but it's a start that we can build on'

I was sure I wasn't quite hearing him right so I objected 'But seventeen points is nearly a fifth of the electorate!'

He looked at me with that degree of surprise that had his mind racing for an explanation. Then the truth of my statement hit his comprehension and he saw my misunderstanding.

'Seventeen points' he began 'doesn't mean seventeen per cent but 0.17%. That's the highest percentage we've ever had in the polls and it makes the way clear for us to successfully continue with our campaign throughout the next four years regardless of what happens this Tuesday'

I sat up on my rear paws and scratched behind my ear - a difficult thing to do when you're trying to commit to a notepad what's being said at the same time. And then it hit me - of course! - the Hamster Presidential Campaign had been committed to a long and arduous journey into the Whitehouse from its very outset. This was going to be no quick dash to the line and then giving up, but a marathon in which successes would be progressively achieved in the ensuing time between the elections, of gaining political expertise in its dealings with the new Government no matter who it might be, of encouraging exercise wheel hanging bars to be built into any renovations of the Whitehouse ahead of time so that a hamster landslide would have already been provided for.

'It will be a long battle' DS assured me 'and our first tentative paw step will be on Tuesday when we begin to fulfil our destiny to be the first rodent elected body in the world in the third millennium AD'

Nuffin the Hamster writes for the Rodent Weekly.
This article appears courtesy of that paper.

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