Indecision gets laugh vote

WASHINGTON - "A most remarkable moment in our nation's history" is what the politicians are calling the seven-days-and-counting US election, but by no means everyone is taking it quite so seriously.

"Indecision 2000" is providing late-night television comedians with their finest hour since the President and the Intern; even company advertising departments are getting in on the act.

Mars has adapted a pre-election advert for its top-selling Snickers chocolate bar, showing tiny cartoon renditions of Al Gore and George W. perched on either side of a "real" person's head. They squabble to and fro about the election result, until the "face" gets fed up and says: "Take a break, have a Snickers."

Distracted Florida pensioners are a favourite target of the satire shows: sketch after sketch shows them botching first their vote and then the count. They forget their glasses, drop piles of ballot papers, lose count after 10, and so on.

Every show has a mock-reporter out in Palm Beach: David Letterman on CBS's Late Show brought us "Biff live via satellite. Well, almost live ... You could almost see the carrier pigeon racing down 53rd Street to Route 1 South to deliver Biff the message. It took that long ... "

Over on NBC, the Tonight Show's Jay Leno called for a last best recount - with new candidates: then we'll get a result.

Bill Maher on ABC's Politically Incorrect took the dead pan route: "Now as of today, what I have to report is that neither Bush nor Gore has been elected President. I know it's a great feeling, but it can't last forever."

Back on CBS, Letterman offered Top Ten dumb guy ways to solve presidential election confusion: No 10: Find some guy named George W. Gore: make him President ... No 1: Solve it? Are you nuts? This is great!

Herald Online feature: America votes

Democrats and Republicans wage war online