This is the first perl poem I have written that does not cause compile errors. I was flipping through channels and the only thing was news updates about the presidential campaigns. So, in an attempt to sum up the campaigns from my point of view, I created this small script. It is pretty simple. There is probably a nicer looking way to get the month, but I do not have any modules installed for the purpose.

NOTES:
Line 21: I did set Kerry to odd on purpose, I see him as a very odd man
Line 36: Bush approaches the issues from the right, ;)
Line 42: Kerry approaches the issues from the left, :)
Eventually Kerry keeps shifing the issues (usually to him being a war hero), and Bush keeps popping the issues, to the point the issues just vanish, and no longer matter.

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;

#############################
#                           #
#  The Bush Kerry camaign,  #
#  a perl approach.         #
#                           #
#############################

our @issues = (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9);

our $candidate = "";
our ($seconds, $minutes, $hours, $mday, $month, $year, $wday, $yday, $
+isdst) = localtime;

my $x = 0;

while($month != 11) {
  if($x%2 == 0) {
    $candidate = "Bush";

    &campaign("Bush");
  } else {
    $candidate = "Kerry";

    &campaign("Kerry");
  }
  $x++
}

sub campaign {
  if($_[0] eq "Bush") {
    pop @issues;

    my $issues = @issues;
  }

  if($_[0] eq "Kerry") {
    shift @issues;

    my $issues = @issues;
  }
}
[download]

This is something that I just did for fun. I do not support either candidate, election day for me is an attempt to pick the lesser of two evils :).