(FORTUNE Magazine) – AFFIRMATIVE INACTION

We were sorry Colin Powell rejected the invitation to debate the California Civil Rights Initiative (CCRI), and not only because his turndown resulted in the ineffable David Duke's getting invited to this September 25 event at Cal State's Northridge campus. Many of one's fellow fans of CCRI--which bars race and sex quotas and preferences in the state's public sector--were dismayed because Powell's acceptance would have given the students the "big name" they yearned for, so they wouldn't have given a platform to Duke, so this character's support for the initiative would have gone unnoticed.

Our own analysis features less concern about CCRI, which remains massively popular and should pass even with Duke's support, and continuing fascination with Powell's success in casting himself as a guy who has something important to say about affirmative action--even though his message has been inconsistent and he won't answer media inquiries about the contradictions. In our own case, his office declined even to go for the ultimate interview cop-out: written questions.

In his monster-selling My American Journey, Powell's emphasis was on a putdown of preferences, which "breed resentment among the nonpreferred" and demean "the achievements that minority Americans win by their own efforts." Great. But in a May commencement address at Bowie State University, Powell was suddenly on the other side, denouncing "those who rail against 'affirmative action' preferences, while they have lived an entire life of preferences."

Next came the Republican convention, where Powell's endorsement of affirmative action caused numerous op-edsters to cast him as the party's conscience. In fact he was trimming all the way, and the unthunderous applause when he got to the subject had to reflect the delegates' uncertainty about whether he was or wasn't endorsing race and sex preferences. Some formulations implied that he might well be (it's too soon to "declare a level playing field"), others that he wasn't (Lincoln's party must stand for "equal rights and fair opportunity for all"). A guy who can waffle like that and still come out looking like your conscience has to have a future in politics.

THE ODDS ON NEBRASKA

To readers who have gloatingly written in to ask whether we have settled our bet with the big man in Omaha--the one wherein your servant collects $400 if anybody beats Roger Maris's season home-run record of 61 but otherwise pays the presumably richest chap in the hemisphere $100--we say there is still hope. First, Mark McGwire of the Oakland Athletics has been putting the pelota in the seats at the rate of one per 7.8 at-bats this year and at the present inst (mid-September) needs only 12 more blasts to bail us out. Since he has an estimated 44 plate appearances still coming, there remains a 0.8% chance of Mark's doing it if only his aching back holds out.

Second, one has agreed after tense negotiations to roll over the home-run bet and combine it with a football proposition broached by the obviously action-addicted CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, who nonchalantly allowed that he would take 4-to-1 and bet $100 on Nebraska to win the AP postseason poll for the third straight year--to "three-peat," in the emetic phrase thus far surfacing in 86 articles in Nexis.

Truth to tell, one had a little trouble accepting 4-to-1 as kosher odds. In the AP's preseason poll of 67 pigskin prophets--they are mostly football writers--first-place votes were won by only five powerhouse teams: Nebraska, Tennessee, Florida State, Colorado, and Notre Dame. If you assume that one of the five will win the final postseason poll, then 4-to-1 odds imply that Nebraska is merely an average powerhouse and should have only a 20% chance of winning a first-place vote from a typical scribe, which means a fellow really has to wonder about its garnering 50 of the 67 votes. As plaintively noted in a demarche to Buffett HQ, there's only about one chance in 1,073,117,682,000,000,000,000 that an event predicted to happen 20% of the time will occur as many as 50 times out of 67.

On the brighter side, the preseason favorite has won only once in the past decade, during which the relationship between (a) proportion of votes cast for first place in the preseason poll and (b) final ranking in the postseason poll is strongly negative, with a correlation of -0.65. Meaning the AP voters can't predict which side of the bed they will get out of in the morning.

Before finally signing on, we offered Warren a chance to switch sides and bet against the Huskers--in which case we would take 2-to-1. We made the rather obvious point that since he viewed 4-to-1 as fair odds, he would be buying into a huge overlay and undervalued situation, presumably his life's calling. So guess what. The guy instantly turned sentimental on us and said he couldn't do that as a sixth-generation Nebraskan. This is the world's most rational investor?

One is still evaluating Michigan State's mysterious total collapse in Nebraska's opening game (score: 55-14).

REPORTER ASSOCIATE Mary Lawrence Wathen