If you don't want to know how the U.S. election turns out, just don't click through.

Kerry wins.

Polls don't show it yet, but John Kerry's path to victory is straight, sure and certain.

With seven weeks to go the incumbent's approval ratings remain below 50% in most surveys. Those who feel the country is on the wrong track greatly outnumber those who say we're going in the right direction.

Folks are just unsure about the challenger. They can't yet imagine history with the other guy in charge, on the tube every day, dominating our lives as every President does. Americans' relation to its Presidents is very intimate -- he's head of the party, of the state, of the government, and all his relatives are (for a time) our royal family. We don't switch easily.

What the challenger must do is stand beside the incumbent and present a reasonable alternative. That's all.

That's all Clinton needed to do in 1992. It's all Reagan needed to do in 1980. It's all Carter needed to do in 1976. Stand up there, let us get a look at you, turn around, say your lines...it's a screen test, not a debate.

With numbers as they are the incumbent's only hope is to tear down the challenger, to make the challenger completely unacceptable, or to hope the challenger fails his screen test. But when the incumbent has failed the challenger never fails, or at least they haven't yet. That's because, by this point in the process, the challenger has always been vetted, by the press and by his party. We know his foibles and failings. We knew about Clinton and women. We knew about Reagan's superficiality. We knew Carter was no Lincoln.

But at this point you don't have to beat the bear, just one other guy.

And the voters say the incumbent has already beaten himself.

So his only hope is to steal it.