Like the responsible columnist that I am, last Thursday found me planted on my couch, watching the presidential debate. As one of the less… shall we say, germane columnists, I spent a good deal of the time drowning out the debate with yells of frustration because ever since quotation marks were invented, politicians have been unable to speak in anything but sound-bites — and not exactly William Jennings Bryan-caliber sound-bites, at that. Goodbye, “cross of gold”; hello, “help is on the way” and “of course we’re after Saddam Hussein — I mean bin Laden.”

When I wasn’t curled up in the fetal position and moaning in agony, I noticed something interesting: Bush’s podium was higher. The NBC broadcast, which I was attempting to watch, would often show a split-screen view of both candidates at once so that you could see Bush’s nervous lip-pursing as Kerry attacked his presidential record and Kerry’s scary grin as Bush accused him of sending “mixed messages.” And though the two candidates were standing behind seemingly identical podiums, the one Bush was standing at seemed to be about five inches higher on the screen.

Of course, it wasn’t that Bush’s podium was five inches taller than Kerry’s; it was that Bush is five inches shorter than Kerry. The cameras’ positions were such that the tops of the two candidates’ heads were even, which meant that five more inches of Bush’s podium were peeking into the bottom of the shot.

It was a curious phenomenon, and one that was likely to be at least partly deliberate. Granted, the pictures were coming from two different cameras, and the camerapersons no doubt wanted to fill as much of the frame as possible without zooming in on Bush so closely that you could see his pores. It makes sense to keep the cameras at the same distance so one candidate doesn’t look like he could pop the other’s head off as though he were a Barbie doll.

But I am reluctant to shrug the podium discrepancy off as merely incidental. The producers could easily see how bizarre and distracting their choice was, but it was more important to keep the candidates’ heights level — something bigger than audience distraction was at stake. Because the taller candidate always wins.

At least, that’s what people say. It makes sense, too; we assume that taller people are more powerful, and vice versa. In fact, politicians and CEOs tend to be taller than the average human — a statistic that is likely due to self-fulfilling prophecy, but a true statistic nonetheless. So when I heard that the taller presidential candidate always wins, I thought: Cool! Good thing there are term limits, or we’d have to keep electing taller and taller presidents until the only viable candidates would be those whose overzealous, perfectionist parents injected them with possibly lethal amounts of growth hormone during childhood.

A bit of research, however, shows that although the taller candidate wins a majority of the time, there are exceptions to the rule. But that’s okay, because there are plenty of other formulae devised by authorities of various stripes, not to mention assorted conspiracy theorists. Most of these algorithms have absolutely nothing to do with actual politics, which means that even apathetic ignoramuses like you and I can apply them to the upcoming election.

A recent article in Psychology Today, for example, cites two more ways to predict who will win the election. Apparently older siblings usually win, which gives Bush an edge; he’s the eldest of six, while Kerry has one older sibling and two younger. And people prefer voting for the more attractive candidate, which portends — let’s be honest here — a surprise victory for John Edwards. Failing an en masse write-in crusade, Bush has the advantage due to the familiarity effect: greater exposure to a face renders it more attractive (or less repulsive, as the case may be).

An ABCNews.com article from just before the 2000 election reported on some slightly more esoteric tests. For the past 15 presidential elections, the outcome of the last Redskins’ home game before the election had correctly predicted who will become president: When the Redskins won, the incumbent went on to victory. When the visiting team won, so did the challenger. The pattern continued in 2000, when the Redskins lost along with Gore. Look out for the Oct. 31 game against the Packers.

Speaking of Oct. 31, perhaps the most interesting predictor of all is the Halloween mask rule. BuyCostumes.com conducted a meta-analysis of the sales of presidential masks since 1980, and discovered that the candidate whose rubbery face startles more elderly people who forgot it was Halloween is always the candidate who wins. As of the writing of this column, the up-to-the-minute stats on the website put Bush at 55 percent of sales and Kerry at 45 percent.

But does this really mean anything, aside from the fact that the American public keeps voting for candidates who are even goofier-looking than their predecessors? Probably not; for every “proven” formula, a thousand others have been disproved and discarded.

Still, it’s a depressing thought that the results of our presidential elections could rely not on political platforms or skill but on completely unrelated characteristics or events, like length of last name or whether the American or National League wins the World Series.

A depressing thought, but not all that surprising. When polls are notoriously inaccurate, we look instead to omens. And when people are too lazy to actually follow the news, we look instead to sound-bites. As a result, the packaging has become far more important than what’s actually inside the box — and the box is all-too-frequently empty.