(Long Island, NY) At the time I write this, the 2008 Presidential bloodbath, sorry, election is far from over. California’s results have not been reported, and Texas is still unofficial. Ohio has just been projected in Obama’s favor and as far as I’m concerned, the election ended when Ohio went into the blue column. I’ve successfully called every election since Jimmy Carter, and for the last two months it’s been clear to me that John McCain will go home with his tail between his legs.
It has been a long, contentious race. The republican side showed its desperation early, making all that hay out of Obama’s former pastor and trying to link Obama to corruption-meister Tony Rezko. Obama made some bad moves along the way, but nothing quite as eager-to-smear as McCain’s machine tried. McCain’s camp thought they’d found Obama’s Achilles’ Heel when Hillary Clinton wasn’t included as VP, but it’s safe to say that Sarah Palin was just about the stupidest choice possible.
Those who know their political history will likely agree that Palin wasn’t the Thomas Eagleton of the 2008 race, but she did more than enough damage to torpedo McCain late in the game. Every single time Palin opened her mouth you could practically watch the votes flying into the Obama column. But make no mistake, this race was not just about avoiding four years of McCain and his 93%-with-Bush voting record. This was about voting out the old guard and voting in The Future.
McCain and Obama, side by side in the debates, presented damn near the same thing to voters as Kennedy and Nixon. Kennedy was youthful and telegenic, Nixon came off looking like an aging used-car salesman with a flask of Kentucky’s finest in his hip pocket. McCain sitting on stage, referring to Obama as “this one” as if he couldn’t quite remember the name of his opponent? He didn’t stand a chance. And McCains party didn’t help him out much. Ohio–the state McCain NEEDED to carry to look viable at all in the early returns– had a staggeringly low Republican turnout…around 30% compared to 2004’s 40% or so according to the pundits.
Sure, there are plenty of people who voted for McCain outside Ohio. I wonder what percentage of them, regardless of their ordinary sports affiliations, secretly hope the Chicago Cubs will really “go all the way” every year of their lives. I also wonder–on a more serious note–who in the last two weeks of this madness actually thought McCain could pull off the election? It seems impossible to me, but apparently there are plenty of those who not only believed it, but refused to admit any other possibility. One of the glories of our country, I suppose, is the inalienable right to believe any damn fool thing you want in spite of all the evidence to the contrary. More power to you, McCain fans. Rage on. In the morning when we’re much closer to official results and the numbers are more or less the same, we can all have a good laugh. The one thing we WON’T be doing is crying over the fact that we’re in for four more years of the same nonsense we’ve been putting up with.
Or WILL we? Time will tell. Obama is fated to disappoint at least SOME of the people. The bar is far too high for any one person to reach. Obama will be expected not only to fix our economy, pull our troops out of Iraq and give us cheap gas, but also kill Darth Vader, liberate the galactic empire and get rid of all those damn stormtroopers. I myself am hoping Obama can cure cancer, re-freeze the polar ice caps and bring world peace three days after taking the oath of office.
Seriously though, the expectations are awfully high. Post-election, it’s going to be a rough road. Obama has a great big mess to clean up, and I don’t envy him. On the other hand, the feeling of optimism I get from everyone around me about the next four years can’t be denied. Maybe it will be enough to help us get over the disappointment we will inevitably feel when we learn the bar has been set far too high for anyone to reach.
The projections have updated as I write this, Obama now carries more than 200 electoral votes. Once California is decided, it’s time for bed. This has been a rambling screed, due in part to the fact that I’ve got one eye on the results and the other on the screen here, which makes for a whopping headache and a potential case of permanent nearsightedness. I’ll sign off for now, but I close with this; I wish Hunter S. Thompson were alive to see this one. He was bitterly disappointed–some believe mortally so–when Bush won the election eight years ago. He felt it was a victory for mean and petty-minded thinking in politics. Eight years later we see a complete reversal…it feels to me as if we’ve got someone potentially as great as Kennedy here. Again, time will tell. More on all this when I have both eyes on the screen and we have results firmed up beyond the projections I’m currently watching.
