As the only office-holding member of Vermont’s fastest growing third party, I almost felt sorry for the White House’s 43rd Occupant and his Republican supporters during the Coral Gables debate, as Massachusetts Democrat John Kerry respectfully but firmly beat the tar out of Mr. Bush across a wide range of foreign policy issues. But, lest we forget, being President is “hard work,” as Mr. Bush repeatedly reminded us. Convincing Congress to pass tax cuts for the nation’s super rich; leveraging the “war on terror” to cherry-pick U.S. intelligence information; manufacturing a pretext for preemptively pushing America into a unilateral invasion and bloody occupation of Iraq; and using the Patriot Act to undermine the Bill of Rights is enough to make even the most energetic among us need a nap from time to time.

I say “almost” felt sorry, because then I remembered what happened in Florida four years ago. The disturbing story is told best in a new version of a documentary called “Unprecedented: The 2000 Presidential Election.” The film, directed by Richard Perez and Joan Sekler and produced by Earl Katz and Robert Greenwald (of “Outfoxed” and “Uncovered”), charges that the Republicans actively stole the election for Mr. Bush in Florida (a state worth 25 electoral votes), and backs up this claim with powerful evidence from some of the world’s best investigative journalists. Forget about the media’s obsession with dimpled and pregnant chads, or butterfly ballots. Here’s a step-by-step guide detailing how to steal a presidential election.

Step #1/Network with the Family: Be sure you have a close family member – in this case, your brother – who is governor of a closely-contested state pivotal to the presidency. The governor and his staff can provide a wide variety of useful services for you behind the scenes.

Step #2/Purge Voters From Lists: Hire large electronic database management corporations, and together with your gubernatorial team, secretly remove as many registered voters from the state voting list prior to the actual election, using highly irregular and even illegal methods. If most of these voters are black Americans who tend to vote Democratic, no matter.

Step #3/Challenge Hand Recounting of Ballots: When individual ballots need to be recounted, repeatedly suggest, that machines are more ballot readers, since we flesh-and-blood folk are subject to “human error and potential mischief.” (See, for example, Steps #1 and #2 above).

Step #4/Enlist the Florida Secretary of State’s assistance: After all, even though she is supposed to be impartially executing state law, she is also a Republican and loyal to the party and your brother (See Step #1, above).

Step #5/Tweak absentee ballot rules: Traditionally, absentee ballots are never accepted if postmarked after election day. Seems reasonable? Challenge this – use lawyers to pressure counties to count ballots postmarked AFTER the election, as much as ten days later. You will successfully pick up hundreds of extra votes this way.

Step #6/Pay party apparatchiks to go to Florida and create “media moments”: The goal here is to intimidate volunteer vote re-counters and create public antipathy towards the recount process, ultimately shutting it down. This worked in Florida’s Broward County.

Step #7/Use the Supreme Court to Derail Decisions Made In Lower Courts: This is a useful strategy because Americans have tremendous respect for the SC, thinking that the Court is a neutral body that works above the daily fray of politics, when in fact, Justices can be as partisan as anyone else. It also helps if some Supreme Court justices duck hunt with your VP candidate on week-ends.

The new DVD version of “Unprecedented,” narrated by activist Danny Glover, also includes a sobering update on the pitfalls of electronic touch screen voting machines, which, thanks to the 2002 “Help America Vote” Act (can you say “Orwellian”?), are replacing traditional punch card voting systems in states across the country. Electronic voting machines, which leave no paper trail for us fallible humans to re-count, can only be read by machines and programmers who work for large corporations, many of whom donate large sums of money to Republican politicos.

Maybe this is why, after getting his snitzers handed to him by John Kerry in Coral Gables, Mr. Bush remains insistent that he will win the state again in just a few weeks’ time. Only trouble is, he didn’t win in Florida the first time. It’s hard work for us all – acknowledging the truth.