There's a new parlor game in town for presidential campaign polling called Hamstergate. It goes like this:

At the Democratic Convention, Kerry's daughter told how her father once leapt into troubled waters to rescue her drowning hamster and eventually resuscitated "Licorice".

At the Republican Convention, the Bush daughters followed with their own hamster tale. "We had a hamster too," Bush's daughter Barbara said. "Let's just say ours didn't make it." Ouch!

In order to understand what this all means, you'd probably have to go to Hamster school.

What we are suppose to believe is that if you were compassionate in such situations, you were going to vote for Kerry and conversely, you were going to vote for Bush if you weren't. Huh?

It seems to me that these very personal hamster anecdotes, which, as all official speeches given at the convention are, were tactically premeditated to speak of the characters of the nominees, and thus lend themselves to a grander political allegory.

What the Democrats would have you believe is this: Although the character of a president should never come down to the treatment of a domesticated house pet, the values demonstrated in the most private moments of everyday life should be a window to understanding the consciences of the politicians we endorse.

What the Republicans would have you believe is this: "Knowing Kerry, it wouldn't surprise me to hear that he also grabbed a hamster defibrillator and yelled "CLEAR!" as he energized the tiny paddles on little Licorice's chest and then put in for a Purple Heart (for himself, not Licorice). '' from a Hamster column by Gersh Kuntzman,

When I was a child, life was simple; a hamster was a hamster was a hamster. But when you get to the voting booth this November, will a hamster be just a hamster?

Boy, I wish I'd skipped this conversation: This polling method will not go down in history.