Gore has enjoyed many a drink at the bar, courtesy of the disputed 2000 election. The rise of a rival sore loser threatens his economic status and future as a star of alarmist environmental movies.

As a result, Democratic lawyers are already in Mexico City filing lawsuits demanding that a landslide winner be declared.

"We need a clear winner, or Gore's goose is cooked," said one source. "The next thing you know, there'll be a rival movie on global warming coming from Mexico and that would confuse a lot of people. "'Un Verdad Inconveniencia' -- that's a nightmare scenario. Al would have to share the private jets with somebody else."

The Democratic Party is arguing that it can find "hundreds of thousands of overlooked votes" that can produce a winner.

"After all, Democrats let Mexicans vote in our elections, so it's only fair we get to vote in theirs," one source said.

Already, Democratic cadres in Chicago and Louisiana are rounding up ballots voted in prison and cemetery districts to submit to the Mexican election officials.

"We really don't care who wins, but it's got to be a knock-out, for Al's sake," somebody else said. "We can't let him lose his hallowed status if it turns out other elections are extremely close and controversial. That's the real inconvenient truth, and that has to be denied."

Asked about the ultimate impact of the election, one Gore-camp observer said, "It depends. If one candidate wins, then millions of Mexicans will stream toward the border to escape the post-election chaos. If the other candidate wins, then tens of millions of Mexicans will stream toward the border to escape the post-election chaos. But let's keep focused on the big issue: making sure Al Gore can continue to host 'Saturday Night Live.'"