[ On election eve, more unsolicited information... ]

Topeka Capital-Journal, The, Nov 6, 2000 by Capital-Journal

On election eve, more unsolicited information and commentary, starting with a warning you should ignore notices saying that due to an expected overflow at the polls, voting will done over two days, with Democrats voting Tuesday and Republicans Wednesday.

If you believe that, you'll also believe a great leader will emerge from the voting, but the cold fact is, either Al Gore or George W. Bush will win, and very likely, over the next eight years you'll look back often and long for the good old days of Bill Clinton.

Headline writers, incidentally, don't view the race with fear and trepidation, since both names fit easily into headlines. But they still like Ike.

- It's very clear now who won the presidential debates. All we had to do was wait to see what the experts had to say:

Todd Gitlin, a New York University journalism professor: "For anyone with an open eye and ear, Gore revealed himself to be an intelligent, thorough and confident figure who, one could imagine without too much difficulty, would master the Oval Office, while Bush revealed himself to be a shambling, evasive babbler."

George magazine's Ann Coulter: "Despite the media propaganda machine trying to hypnotize the American people into believing Bush is a nincompoop and Gore is a genius, the Dope keeps performing well while the Intellectual Colossus keeps frightening small children."

Clear enough?

- We were gone three weeks on a vacation trip last month, and when we returned we found a dead bird in the house. It was on the floor by the door leading to the deck, obviously dying when its last attempt at freedom failed.

We figure it must have flown into the garage, then entered the house as we were going in and out of the garage, loading the car on the morning we left. Bye bye Birdie.

- What does California have that Kansas doesn't? For one thing, it has the ollalieberry, a cross between a blackberry and a raspberry, and it makes into jam. An old Okie says here it's not as good as grape jelly.

- California also has maybe the country's most famous state legislator in Sen. Tom Hayden. He's famous because he once was married to actress Jane Fonda, was an author and peace activist, has been in the Legislature 18 years, and finally because he's being forced out of office this year, a victim of the state's term limits law.

- Remember Tommy Morrison, the Oklahoma heavyweight boxer who for five short months was the World Boxing Organization's champion? He's in the Southwest Arkansas Community Punishment Center in Texarkana, serving 10 years after pleading guilty to a felony drug charge in Fayetteville in January.

Morrison won the WBO belt in 1993 with a unanimous decision over George Foreman. Five months later he was knocked out in the first round by Michael Bentt in what was supposed to be a warmup before meeting Lennox Lewis. The loss canceled the Lewis fight and cost Morrison the $7.5 million purse he was to receive.

He earned $12 million in his career, and most of it is gone.

- The state of Oklahoma wants to put a statue of an Indian atop its capitol dome, just as Kansas wants to do, but the difference seems to be that Oklahoma is getting it done. The Sooners have selected a sculptor for a 20-foot statue costing $250,000 that will be paid for by private funds. It will go on a new $20 million dome, being paid for by both private funds and state bonds. It will all be ready in 2002.

The sculptor is Sen. Kelly Haney, a full-blooded Seminole-Creek Indian who paints and sculpts under the name of Enoch Kelly Haney, and he has refused to accept the $50,000 commission.

- A hot seller in Denver is a calendar featuring bare-chested Denver firefighters, with proceeds going to the Children's Hospital Burn Center. You buy one, and you could win a visit by some of the firemen to your office. Or to your home? I don't think so.

- When the news came out that George W. Bush had pleaded guilty to a DUI charge in 1976 and then covered it up for 24 years, he called it a Democrat dirty trick.

If that's so, then it was a Washburn dirty trick when the school said the county commission candidate in Atchison who claimed he was a Washburn graduate really wasn't.

The fact is, both candidates created a time bomb and were carrying it around when it exploded.

- A final election note: Elliott Roosevelt Jr., whose grandfather, Franklin D. Roosevelt, created Social Security, is supporting Bush, saying FDR would approve the governor's Social Security plan. He's about the only one who says that.

Dick Snider can be reached at

dsnider@cjonline.com.