KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Those fighting words from the 1960s, “America – love it or leave it,” have been modified for the 2000s: “Love it, leave it, or talk about leaving and then stay.”

Before the presidential election, Robert Redford reportedly said he would to Ireland if President Bush won another term. The movie star’s agent now says Redford won’t emigrate – indeed, he never considered it – but that hasn’t stopped Internet message boards from screaming, “Leave!”

It happened to a country-folk music star in Nashville, Tenn., to quotable academics on the coasts, even to a Kansas City woman who found her 15 minutes of fame by being the 1 millionth donor to Sen. John Kerry’s presidential campaign Web site.

All told the news media they might leave the country if voters picked Bush.

Canada seemed the destination of choice. The day after Bush’s victory, the Web site for Canada’s immigration services fielded more than 115,000 “hits” from Americans, almost a sixfold rise in traffic.

Interest in Citizenship and Immigration Canada’s Web pages then ebbed. It spiked again last week after news reports about the site, only to drop again. Curiosity may be higher than normal, a Canadian immigration official said, but requests for visa applications have been about the same.

“Having the intent and actually engaging one’s self are two different things,” said Maria Iadinardi, spokeswoman for Citizenship and Immigration Canada. She called the Internet inquiries mere “spikes in emotions.”

‘Stay home, maggots’

Before the 2000 presidential election, filmmaker and Kansas City native Robert Altman vowed to bolt to France if Bush won. Altman stayed. That year acting couple Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger floated the possibility of packing for Europe. They, too, stayed – just not together.

This year, some conservative groups have launched drives to cover Redford’s moving expenses. In Canada, however, a columnist for The Calgary Sun told potential newcomers: “Stay home, you pathetic, whining maggots.”

Cathy Weigel wasn’t exactly whining.

Surprised one morning in May when reporters and a Kerry campaign staffer showed up at her door, the north Kansas City resident more or less blurted it out.

“If George Bush wins in November, I’ve got to move to Canada or something because I cannot stand the way things are going,” said Weigel, 46. The 1 millionth donor through JohnKerry.com, the clerical worker excitedly awaited a phone call from the candidate.

Weigel has lived in the Kansas City area all her life. “I really loathe the winters here, and they’re way worse in Canada,” she now acknowledges. But what else could she say to the media (as her dog hid beneath a coffee table) when asked about a president she loathed as much as the cold?

“I was kidding. The underlying point is that this administration is so bad, if we re-elect this guy, it’s only going to get worse,” Weigel said. “So, no, I ain’t moving. … The other side only won by 51 percent.”

The other side included a Lenexa, Kan., man who, in an e-mail to The Kansas City Star, offered to hold a going-away party for Weigel after Bush’s victory.

An October search of cyberspace by SF Weekly hinted at a pending glut of going-away parties. The San Francisco alternative newspaper found the phrase, “If Bush wins, I’m …,” in about 450 different expressions, including:

“If Bush wins, I’m outta here.”

“If Bush wins, I’m jumping the fence to Mexico.”

“If Bush wins, I’m going to be living with some very unhappy Brazilians.”

Kansas City Democratic consultant Steve Glorioso has heard it before.

Always happens

“The talk always comes right before an election, and right after, it dissipates,” Glorioso said. “I did talk radio in the 1990s, and you heard it from Republicans. Costa Rica seemed to be the favorite spot for them.”

At the U.S. Embassy in San Jose, spokeswoman Elaine Samson could only cite estimates of the number of U.S.-born residents of Costa Rica – 20,000 to 30,000 – but she knew of none who came just to flee President Bill Clinton.

Frances Givens, chairwoman of Republicans Abroad in Costa Rica, said in a telephone interview: “Generally, we’re here because we’re businesspeople. … I moved to Costa Rica in 1996 – not because of (Clinton’s re-election that year), but to start a company” that makes rope sandals.

Democrat Ian Mitroff, recently characterized in the British media as “deadly serious about considering whether to move north,” sounded less serious last week.

“I doubt I probably will go … you know, after the depression simmers down,” said Mitroff, a business professor at the University of Southern California.

For Mitroff, hoping for Bush’s defeat and then facing the other outcome were like “the stages of cancer. Ultimately, you have to deal with it. … You can’t walk around with anger.”

So why did he tell the world he might emigrate, inciting hateful e-mail he knew would pile his way?

“They don’t understand the deep ambivalence I have,” said Mitroff, 66. “A lot of my friends at the university feel the same dark depression. … All the guns in this country, all the gay-bashing. The lack of health care. An unnecessary war. …”

‘We need your voice’

Singer Nanci Griffith in August told The Tennessean newspaper of Nashville, “I’ve made a conscious decision” to exit the country in January “if Kerry does not win in November.”

After the election, Griffith changed her mind, partly because “other people called me relentlessly … saying, “We need your voice.”‘

An online poll by the newspaper apparently held less sway. Asked whether Griffith should leave the country, 84 percent of respondents in the unscientific survey said “yes.”

In all the hyperbole of this election, Brian Boyko now finds himself in a corner.

Boyko isn’t famous. He studies journalism at the University of Texas.

But earlier this year he punched into the message board of the British Broadcasting Corp., writing that he was “seriously considering” emigrating if Bush remained president.

The BBC then interviewed Boyko, 25, who said “something is rotten” in his homeland.

Boyko said he loves America and its constitutional freedoms, “but we are not behaving like Americans.” So he is looking into temporary work visas to New Zealand – maybe just for four years.

“Even if I didn’t want to go, I’m stuck now,” he said. “I’m on the public record.”