The cold, hard truth is...I don't give a Pokemon's behind whether you like me or not. Why? Because YOU CAN'T VOTE! Let me reiterate that: YOU CAN'T VOTE. This is not to say that you aren't a valuable person to your family, or your community, or even society at large, but to me, you are no more valuable than sack of spent silly string.

Now, I know what you're thinking. How can a major presidential candidate think this way? The cold, hard truth is...they ALL think this way. They may load up their web sites with little games or colorful doo-dads and claim them as "Kids pages," but in reality, those pages are just cynical attempts to make gullible parents think that Candidate X "cares" about their children.

Poppycock! You think Al Gore cares about you kids? His "for kids" page has a quiz on it, for Pete's sake! I have yet to see a kid who wants to spend his spare time taking any quiz, much less one on someone as bland as Al Gore. And is Bush any better? Heck no! His kids' section concocts some strange "government-is-like-baseball" analogy. Ha! In baseball, it's always the fans who get jerked around. Look around. Who do you think the "fans" are in government?

The cold, hard truth is all of the other candidates just pay lip service to kids. I am planning to make changes to make kids' lives better. Changes like:

• A minimum of three federally-mandated, hour-long recesses every school day, all the way through high school.

• A government-sponsored database posted on the internet with every answer to every math problem from every textbook used in the United States.

• A national law requiring every fast food restaurant in America to have a playground.

• Federal mediation for negotiations into later bedtimes.

How are those for gimmicks? Those are issues that real kids care about. Not "when did Al and Tipper meet" (snooze) or "how is a balk like a filibuster?" But, as I've said before, since you can't vote, your opinion doesn't really matter to me one way or another. But remember this, when your parents pick up a presidential coloring book for you in November, whose picture do you think will be the easiest to color in? Well, actually, that would be Gore (just use the "beige" crayon for everything), but I'd be second.

So when you and millions of other children are holding your mock elections this fall in classrooms across the nation just remember, I won't be there because there's really no point. But unlike all the other candidates, at least I'll tell you that up front.