There's only one race in America that matters, and we have the exclusive on the winner:
It's Mitt Romney by a (Chia) head.
The much-anticipated head-to-head contest between the President Barack Obama Chia Head and the Mitt Romney Chia turned out to be no contest at all. Romney sprouted forth a full, lush greenfro, like some angry, big-haired Bob Dylan. But Obama's was measly and thin, a little on the George Jefferson side, a sad half-a-greenfro barely covering his fake terra cotta dome.
And through the magic of Chicago Tribune video — shot by veteran Tribune photographer E. Jason Wambsgans — you can see our unbiased political experiment unfold before your very eyes at chicagotribune.com/chia.
It's the most profound video on American politics you'll see this year, and the music could have been used on Ron Burgundy's newscasts.
"Something's wrong here," Wambsgans said. "I just can't figure it. The Obama head just doesn't hold water."
I should have listened to him, but I didn't.
The contest ran from Oct. 17 to Nov.1, with strobe-lit photos taken every half-hour. Some 1,250 photographs of the presidential scalps were shot to make the video.
Romney, campaigning Friday near Milwaukee, will no doubt be overjoyed by the news. And Obama, in Ohio, might need a cigarette if he finds out.
We didn't rely on polls because they can be manipulated. So instead we used Chia Heads of each candidate and set them on a shelf near the offices of the late Col. Robert R. McCormick, the legendary Tribune publisher, so they'd get plenty of equal sunlight. The big idea? Two heads enter, one head leaves.
But Wambsgans kept insisting something was amiss.
"I'm telling you," he said. "The Obama head just doesn't hold water."
Of course it doesn't, and neither do his wacky economic theories, but I had nothing to do with the outcome of this Chia contest. We'd already scrubbed one earlier head-to-head contest because Romney trounced Obama under questionable circumstances, and I wanted to demonstrate I could be fair.
I didn't even touch the heads. After the first Romney win, my former assistant, Shooter, scraped each head clean with a plastic knife, then planted them anew with Chia seeds and watered them faithfully each day. Then the new guy — who wants to be called Old School — took over.
Old School? With dreadlocks? What's so old school about that?
"I'm Old School in here," said Old School, tapping his chest over his heart. "Old School."
Cool.
When Romney's head trounced Obama's for a second time, Shooter and Old School began pointing fingers at each other. Old School had heard that Shooter was a self-confessed plant killer, ruining every houseplant she ever touched, so much so that her husband finally broke down and just gave her a cactus.
"From the beginning, it was all Romney," Shooter said. "Ever since he started sprouting, Obama looked like he had a military buzz cut going on, whereas Romney had a Bozo the Clown 'do."
So Old School decided to make things even. "I noticed Obama's head was always emptier than Romney's," he said. "So I watered Obama's head even more."
