My best friend back home goes to Yale and rarely a day goes by without him mentioning how everyone who is anyone went to New Haven’s finest — the Bushes, the Clintons, Howard Dean, John Kerry, Hilary Duff, the Kansas City Chiefs and that skinny Japanese guy who always wins the hot-dog-eating contests. (OK, the last three are exaggerations, but you get my drift). Sticking up for the purple and white, I said once: “Oh yeah? Well, Northwestern has … Dick Gephardt.”

An uncomfortbale silence befell our conversation and all I had left was NU’s long list of asinine sitcom stars. Like the song says, “You gotta know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em.”

Yes, NU is the cradle of presidential losers and you can add the Missouri congressman’s 2004 effort to its ranks from now.

Let me emphasize that I have immense respect for Gephardt. He was a working-class kid who put himself through school on scholarships and odd jobs, then turned down private sector dollars for a life of public service. He’s on the correct side of most issues: keeping good jobs here in America, providing healthcare for the uninsured and supporting public schools. But his tax-and-spend history makes him the perfect patsy for Republicans.

Gephardt wants to raise taxes on the middle class (a surer recipe for death than Foster-Walker dining hall) and to spend the money on billions in new programs, all with a blind eye to ballooning budget deficits — deficits you and I will have to pay off when we enter the workforce. Plus his speeches and general liveliness make University President Henry Bienen sound like a Brazilian soccer announcer.

So why is NU the Buffalo Bills of presidential elections? A quick survey of losing alums reveals a common thread: William Jennings Bryan lost four times, Adlai Stevenson got walloped twice, George McGovern lost the biggest landslide ever and Gephardt himself ran unsuccessfully once before.

All of these poor souls are Midwesterners.

Now I know the admissions office has made great progress in nationalizing the student body, but the Midwest still predominates. Couple this with the fact that the last Midwesterner elected president was Dwight Eisenhower (all he did was save the free world from Nazi tyranny), and the odds don’t look so good.

I have an impractical solution: I recommend NU pack up and move to Daytona, Fla.

Our troubles with Evanston would be over, having a beach on campus would actually mean something and our in-state football recruiting would be off the hook. Moreover, since the Sun Belt dominates presidential elections nowadays, we could be in a much better spot to attract — dare I say — the next Jimmy Carter.

For now, though, it looks like we’re saddled with the great Middle West and Dick Gephardt. But hey, cheer up; we’ve also got the nasal chick from “Will & Grace.”