Anticipating the election

The presidential election is a week away and I’m confident the results will break like I want them to. I’m also very nervous. As a lifelong progressive Democrat (one of about seven middle-aged white guys who fit that description in my suburban/rural county in one of the reddest – and I do mean reddest – states in the South), it’s obvious I’m looking forward to an apparently inevitable victory for Barack Obama. I also know how Democratic “locks” have been blown before, and I know how devious McCain and his operatives are likely to be in their final death throes.

The Republican strategy that seems to be playing out currently (and I do mean playing out) is to paint Obama as the socialist candidate. I’m not surprised that this appears to be failing just like the other scatter-shot initiatives that the Rove spawn have thrown up at the electorate. Are most McCain supporters and those still sitting on the fence even familiar with the concept of “socialism” anymore? I can see this being an effective slur to rile up the Silent Majority of the ‘60s and ‘70s, but among today’s audience it seems like only social science majors are even going to be aware of the term. I’d bet you anything that a poll taken today asking who Karl Marx was would generate as many correct answers as it would responses like “Dancing with the Stars finalist” or “the twin sons of Angelina and Brad”. You might as well label Obama as a “supercalifragilist” or a “Titleist” and just say those things are bad, and the faithful but not-all-that-bright right-wing base would start shouting these at McCain rallies.

The socialist-labeling strategy appears to be replacing last week’s theme of appealing to Joe-the-Plumber types with the warning that Democrats want to “share the wealth” (imagine McCain making air quotes here). Again, I don’t think that this is ringing quite the tone that was intended. As we’re bombarded daily with stories of outrageous executive salaries, bailouts for banks and Sarah Palin’s wardrobe malfeasance, I would imagine that most of us struggling to make ends meet believe a little wealth-sharing might be a good idea right about now. Maybe at one time we had some vague aspiration of owning our own business or making $250,000 a year. By now, though, that dream has become as relevant as the one where I’m riding a zebra over a waterfall in my underwear and then I’m suddenly in a class where I’ve forgotten to study for the test. These folks waving the signs reading “I’m Bob the Heating Guy” or “Remember Joan the Waxer” don’t have aspirations as much as they do too-easy access to permanent markers and poster paper. Soon enough, I hope, we’ll be reading election post-mortems explaining how John the Loser and Sarah the Historical Footnote thought such childish sloganeering could win them a national election during an unprecedented financial crisis.

The week before Joe the Plumber’s unlikely ascendancy from under the sink to the national stage, we got to hear how Obama’s palling around with now-geriatric leftists should cause us to question his judgment. William Ayers who, like many of idealistic but misguided radicals actually ended up devoting their lives to helping the underclasses they protested on behalf of 40 years ago, was equated with our modern-day definition of terrorist. Though Ayers might share the less-than-conscientious grooming habits of the bin Ladens and al-Zawaris, his radical tendencies were intent on changing America, not destroying it. And just because Obama served on some education improvement boards with him or attended a party at his house hardly makes them partners in bomb-throwing. No one would claim that McCain’s 5½ years in the Hanoi Hilton as a POW was some kind of inappropriate association with the wrong type (even though he probably benefitted from a boatload of Hilton Rewards points). I once pulled up next to Ted Bundy at a stoplight in Florida, but I’m not considering a coast-to-coast murder spree because of it.

It’s mostly because of already-existing political tendencies that I’ll be rooting hard for Obama next Tuesday. Because I’ve become so passionate, I doubt I’ll actually be able to watch the returns without becoming crestfallen at every scrap of potentially negative news. The race is being covered too much like a sporting event, and I’ve already wasted way too many Saturday and Sunday afternoons getting worked up as some guys I don’t even know crash into each other and advance a ball down the field in ways that may not suit my liking. Watching the election results, I’d end up yelling at states rather than players – “stupid Nevada”, “Missouri, why don’t you wear a skirt, you little girl”, “Colorado, you were wide open!” – and that just doesn’t seem right at a time when we should be pulling together as a nation.

I’ll probably just Ti-Vo the whole evening while I sit blind-folded in my car listening to my iPod so I’m not aware of the inevitable ups and downs of the TV coverage. Then, early Wednesday morning I’ll play the thing back on triple-speed, hoping the electoral vote count is kept as a running tab at the top of the screen just like the football scores and I can watch it advance quickly. I’ll still be able to urge on my favorite candidates (because I’ll be rooting for an outcome that’s actually already occurred, I’ll have to change my cheering to the past tense: “Have Gone!” not “Go Barack!”) but if there’s pain involved in outcomes I don’t like, at least it will be over as quickly as a pin prick (and I do mean … oh, never mind).