As soon as the dust has settled over the US presidential election, one man is going to have to cope with the awful reality of coming second. There are no silver medals in this race. In the US more than anywhere else, winning is all, and in the presidential race, it's more than that. Runner-ups are also-rans. The term "loser" with all its dreary implications is a classically American concept.

An entire article was devoted in this paper the other day to how former US presidential campaigners coped, or rather didn't cope, with coming second. Michael Dukakis was quoted as saying that losing stinks: "Winning is a lot better."

And we were told that the losing candidate could expect to experience depression, guilt, rage, extreme fatigue, time-zone confusion, bitterness; and quite possibly in-growing toenails, Bright's Disease, heartburn, Yellow Fever, Tourette's Syndrome, Bell's Palsy and paranoia.

Worse, the pain of a presidential defeat would affect campaign assistants, friends, supporters and especially wives, ensuring further guilt and grief for the defeated candidate.

This is really not bearable. So what can be done about it?

I talked to the well-known loss psychologist Ernest Schlinkenheimer, who specialises in American presidential campaigns, and he is adamant that so-called losers are doing a bad job. But surely, I pointed out, they should accept that doing a bad job is what has them where they are?

No, no, insisted the professor, with rather typical professorial impatience, they are doing a bad job in allowing people to think of them as losers.

But. . . isn't that what they are? The professor sighed deeply at this point and introduced his colleague, the semiotics and dipsy psychology professor Mick Mekhurite, who pointed out, in the way you explain things to a four-year-old, that loss firstly implies ownership, and that you cannot "lose" something you do not already possess.

So the runner-up to the new President hasn't really lost at all?

He may have lost some dignity, self-respect, pride, faith in himself, faith in everyone else, the admiration of his friends, the love of his wife, the respect of the nation and a few million dollars, but he has not lost the Presidency.

No big problem then?

Precisely.

So he should think better of himself?

Not necessarily. He should feel he has not lost, but marginally underachieved. Is there any way this could be explained to the American people?

No.

Did Bill Clinton lose the Presidency then, or did he just misplace it?

Your rather facetious view of things raises an interesting concept. Though surrounded by glamorous trappings of all kinds, and a great degree of power, the American Presidency is not a tangible item but rather an emblem, a totemic concept.

There's no soul to it?

I did not say that. For such questions you should refer to my colleagues in the theological department. However, had Mr Clinton failed to secure his second term of office, he could accurately be said to have "lost" the Presidency. But he didn't.

No. Though some of my PhD students insist with some logic that during his second term the Presidency actually lost Mr Clinton.

The Presidency lost its way, though its incumbent (Bill) always knew exactly where he was going? Yes. You appear to be more insightful than was originally obvious. Mr Clinton may initially have appeared a little careless in his custodial role, but the failed impeachment process then "returned" the "lost" Presidency to Mr Clinton, so that it appeared to many that he had merely got back what was rightfully his.

I see. Tell me, since so many of those Americans - nearly half of those with votes - who failed to exercise their franchise might consider themselves "losers" in terms of economic power and material achievement, was it perhaps a mistake for both candidates to put themselves forward as potential winners?

Undoubtedly so. But a campaign message such as "I'm a loser just like you - so vote for me" would be likely to backfire if not precisely focused on the appropriate voters.

But if it hit the right ones, and they turned out on voting day, they might swing the whole thing?

Precisely.

Then losers would have elected a loser as. . .the winner. Would not this put the runner-up in a very strange and difficult position, beaten by a self-proclaimed loser?

Yes, and it would create very interesting work for those of us in the loss psychology field.

All would not be lost, then?

No. And I think you could usefully read my paper on swings and roundabouts in the post-Modernist age.