archy

This is bad news
For hard-core polling geeks.

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Forget about the guesswork from the political pundits and ignore all those election polls.

The real key to predicting the outcome of the presidential election is this year's face-off of the Halloween masks.

It's as unscientific as it gets, but the theory, according to some people in the costume business, is that the winner in every election since 1980 has been the candidate whose masks were most popular on Halloween.

So far this year, Bush masks have been outselling those of Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry by a 57 percent to 43 percent margin, according to one outfit, BuyCostumes.com, the online arm of Wisconsin-based costume marketer Buyseasons Inc.

On the other hand, this company says Reagan is their all-time best-selling mask. I know that industry wide, Nixon is the all-time favorite. Maybe we can dismiss this as an outlier mask poll.