HERE IT IS, a mere 40 days before the last Presidential election of this century (unless you’re one of those who believes decades and centuries start with the “1” year instead of the “0” year), and it’s receiving about as much public hoopla as a Behring-era Seahawks home game. This despite the novelty of a Dem actually favored to win re-election while the Repos flay around trying to prevent internal ideological spats from imploding their coalition. You can tell the Dole guys are desperate when they resort to the lowest of smears (unsupported allegations of Clinton carrying STDs) while still claiming to be the campaign of “character.”

Needless to say, my search for even unfunny Jack Kemp/Shawn Kemp puns is a washout, as Kemp’s own campaign role has been as of this writing. Kemp’s succeeded merely at “doing no harm” to the Dole ticket, making no Quayle-esque standout moves that might attract criticism. Indeed, if you got all your info about the GOP ticket from Clinton and Gore’s speeches, you might thinkGingrich was running for prez and Dole was running for veep. There will, of course, be a vice-presidential debate in the next couple of weeks, which will let Kemp shine in the spotlight for one evening trying to out-wonk Gore. (The syndicated Ike-conservative Bob Novak claims unnamed higher-ups in the Dole camp are displeased with Kemp for spending too much time talking to African-American voters about inner-city revitalization instead of luring back wayward white Reagan Democrats.)

CORREC: The revived Spud Goodman Show is actually on KCPQ at 1 a.m. Tuesday nights/Wednesday mornings. The new show, produced with spit, bailing wire, a couple of Betacams, and massive tape editing (the cast easily outnumbers the crew) actually looks more professional than Spud’s studio-based old show ever did.

WHAT’S IN STORE: The boarded-up Westlake Center storefront with the mysterious sign mentioned here a month or so ago is now open. It turned out to be Inside Out, a boutique offering interior accessories and knick-knacks of pseudo-rustic and “provincial” bents. Sort of like that Complete Gardener plant store at 2nd & Pine, but without any plants.

IN THE CHIPS: Thanks to reader Joseph K. Aikala, who found it while traveling to Colorado, I now have a giant bag of Doritos Max tortilla chips, a test-marketed Frito-Lay product with the molecularly-engineered fake fat Olestra. I’m happy to report none of the digestive problems consumer rabble-rousers have associated with the stuff. On the other hand, they’re not the tastiest snack foods I’ve ever had–there’s a peculiar brittle, unsolid feel to them, and a blandness only partly covered by the heavy dosage of Cool Ranch flavoring. For a lo-fat chip I’d still recommend the same firm’s Baked Tostitos product.

KEEPING TABS: The tabloidization of American media, viewed with alarm by media critics for over a decade, may be on the wane. Daytime sleaze-talk TV ratings peaked over a year ago; most all of last year’s new talk shows died swift, painless deaths. And now comes word that the supermarket tabloids, having finally gotten grudging respect from mainstream media as a source of stories, are on a long-term downswing. An NY Times story reports the National Enquirer, its sister rag the Star, and the rival Globe have each lost 30 percent of their average circulation since ’91, even despite OJ. What’s more, the tabs’ audience is aging, with young adults either less interested in celebrities’ private lives or finding enough of that fare elsewhere. (The article didn’t mention the self-parodicWeekly World News, the third member of the Enquirer trioka and the favorite “slumming” material for people who think they’re the only readers in on the joke.) I admit to being one of those post-Boomer readers who are indifferent to the grocery tabs’ fare. But the format itself is one of your classic literary forms, and could theoretically be revived by people who knew how to tell intriguing stories well.

(I’ve met “radical” guys who claim to hate “The State,” but love the Presidential bid of Ralph “There Oughta Be A Regulation” Nader. Why do you suppose this is? Leave your ideas at clark@speakeasy.org.)