I was reading Studs Terkel, a rare and vanishing repository of American sanity, and I had this uncanny sense that I would never know who the next President will be.  I am exhausted, and I am ready to go.  Maybe it was one of Stud's topics—and the title of his latest book—which kindled my fatalism:  Hope Dies Last. 

Votes will be cast, and the tallies adjusted, if necessary, to re-elect President Boob, or to elect whomever else the sinister elite will have presented as their candidate in November 2004.  We of hope have not acquired the same kind of direct control that conservatives have acquired through their treasonable acts, and through their cynical cultivation of many people's fear and apathy.  And they conduct this immoral abuse of power so well that the hope that dies last is a friend I visit often lately, for it seems to be in a rapid decline.  Like I feel. 

Perhaps a candidate other than Dennis Kucinich can get elected and accomplish something hopeful.  And if Dennis was presented by the Democratic Party as its candidate in a two-way race, he'd win.  From Studs' article:

Such is the comely and elegant hope we preserve.  Hope dies last, and I am feeling awful close to that end.