Predictions
Since the election is mere hours away, I suppose I should join my fellow bloggers in offering my predictions. Forgive me for being more pessimistic than my fellow poll-watchers, but I don’t see a Democratic “sweep” happening. I think they’ll take the House by a slight margin, but still remain the minority in the Senate by a seat or two. If we’re lucky, we’ll get Congressional deadlock for the next two years and the Bush Administration’s reign of imbecility will grind to a halt, but knowing the cowards and fools in the Democratic leadership, I expect the reaction to their electoral “mandate” will be to reach across the aisle and rule from the center. Yuck.
One of my most vivid election night memories is from 1992. As an idealistic high school student, I was excited by the prospect of a liberal president putting the final nail in the coffin of the Reagan years. Along with my friends Brian and Garrett, I sneaked into the Democratic watch party as state after state was called for Bill Clinton. When the networks finally called the election, balloons fell from the ceiling, “Don’t Stop” by Fleetwood Mac blared from the speakers, and everyone was ecstatic. After a few years of free trade, “don’t ask, don’t tell”, and general mediocrity, I felt like a fool for ever entertaining the notion that a Democratic win was worth anything more than slowing down the Republican agenda. I desperately hope the Democrats win big on Tuesday, but I’m not going to make the same mistakes I made 14 year ago.
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Unfortunately, gerrymandering–the practice of legislators redrawing district boundaries to keep their seats safe–is so much worse than it was back then.
Comment by Doobie — November 5, 2006 @ 6:26 pm
I remember that night. Boy, you really can’t go home again. The best you can do is move to a smarter state, and unfortunately that doesn’t seem to help the country as a whole.
So, great. Happy election day.
Comment by briantologist — November 6, 2006 @ 10:59 am
“rule from the center” means, in this context, prove their worth to their rich benefactors. If the Democrats don’t pass legislation that brings home the bacon then they are a waste of rich folks’ money. And the Democrats in charge of the party, being craven fools, will simply pull the same shit they’ve been pulling this last six years: false disagreement, fake stand-offs, and last-minute compromise that involves a lot of compromise from the Democrats, and none at all from the Republicans.
I am totally depressed now.
Comment by Joe — November 6, 2006 @ 12:44 pm
I’m going to go out on a limb big time here, I predict the worse case of mas vote fraud in U.S. history. That’s saying something given the long and colorful history of vote fraud in this country. I think the Rethugs will not only not lose any seats in congress but will gain seats, a substantial number of seats. The last minute push of rotten tricks is just to get the margin close enough so the vote fraud will not be too obvious. The ultimate goal, I would think, is getting enough seats to make amending the constitution practical. I can foresee three amendments, a meaningless one to ban flag burning, one to write discrimination into the constitution by baning same sex unions of any sort and the big one the repeal of the 22nd amendment. That is the big one because it would mean shrub can run for a third, fourth, fifth etc. terms. In effect president for life.
Of course these could wind up the paranoid ravings of a old radical or at least I hope so. But I would not put anything past this bunch of power hungry creeps.
Comment by Natasha Yar-Routh — November 6, 2006 @ 4:16 pm
You might be on to something there, i.e., the 2004 Ohio vote tallies vs. exit polls. The numbers were radically different, something previously unheard of.
Comment by Doobie — November 6, 2006 @ 8:07 pm