You know, this may sound crazy or something, but we're actually starting to wonder if maybe Steve Jobs isn't planning to run for President. After all, time's really starting to run out, here; the election is less than three weeks away, and yet the Stevester still hasn't even announced his candidacy yet. Now, his barefoot leanings aside, Steve's no slacker, so it obviously isn't the case that he just hasn't gotten around to throwing his hat in the ring because he's been otherwise occupied catching up on his tapes of Ally McBeal. As shocking as this may sound, we may have to face the very real possibility that the man simply has no plans to run.

And that's a crying shame, of course, because after watching the third debate last night on the off-chance we'd get to see either Algor or Dubya throw a punch, we couldn't help but feel that if Steve had been there, he would have mopped the floor with both of them. Alas, he wasn't-- and we didn't even get a single sucker-punch from either candidate. On the plus side, we did get to update our list of quizzical and droll out-of-context quotes by adding Gore's "I will do something" and Bush's delightful "We shouldn't be using food." But deep down, we kept hoping against hope for Steve to do a walk-on like David Brenner on the old Tonight Show; after the applause died down, "Mr. Jobs Goes To Washington" would lay the verbal smackdown on Mr. Sleepy and Wooden Boy and perhaps toss in a few body slams just to liven up the proceedings. No such luck.

And then there's the matter of The Endorsement. Faithful viewer Christine Wright almost killed the dream outright when she passed on a Dow Jones article about how the Gore campaign was about to announce endorsements by "420 high-tech executives," including such heavy hitters as Netscape founder Marc Andreessen, RealNetworks bigwig Rob Glaser, Novell's Eric Schmidt, and ex-Palm-current-Handspring guru Donna Dubinsky. (Well, of course-- why wouldn't the high-tech industry support Gore? After all, he invented the Internet.) That's all well and good, but one of those 420 executives almost drove a stake through our hearts: Steve himself is on that list, backing Gore instead of himself.

Faithful viewer PJ Taylor passed along a Reuters article confirming the news, so that pretty much clinches it... no iPresident come next Inauguration Day. Instead we'll have to settle for a puppet Chief Executive with Steve pulling the strings from behind the scenes. Unless, of course, Steve's endorsement of Gore is just one more step in some diabolical plan to splinter the tech vote before swooping in at the last minute and sealing his write-in victory. (What do you mean, we're reaching?)