Don’t count your chickens before you scramble the eggs

I think it was Yogi Berra who said, "It ain’t over till it’s over". The Republicans should take this advice to heart before their party eats itself in an orgy of mutual blame, finger-pointing and planning for careers after the election; McCain could still win this, and then where would they be?

A lot of information (admittedly, mostly second- or third-hand) has been coming to light regarding McCain staff quietly putting out feelers for future employment, acting for all the world like people who’ve already lost an election. Or rather, people who fully expect to loose an election. Moreover, Sarah Palin herself appears to be creating some distance from McCain, perhaps positioning herself for a future run for national office.

This all seems premature.

McCain seems to have placed his hopes on an electoral college strategy that would win him the election even while loosing the popular vote (sound familiar?). In fact, he appears to have given up on the popular vote already. Take Michigan, for example: he finds the probability of taking Michigan so slight he isn’t even campaigning there anymore. He’s not the first to adopt such a strategy, but what bothers me is that he might actually pull it off. Mathematically, it’s far from impossible.

This, of course, would set up a bigger firestorm than we had with the old who-won-Florida debacle eight years ago. Remember? Remember not knowing who won the election until weeks after the election? Remember the Supreme Court stepping in and deciding the election for us, despite the fact that they had no constitutional authority to do so or that the electoral procedures in place hadn’t even been fully utilized? I certainly remember. And I dread the same thing happening again. Could the U.S. face another such without domestic violence breaking out? I don’t know...but I doubt it.

(Get this straight: I am not advocating domestic violence in any form, and I don’t think it would benefit anyone. If it happens it would be the darkest day in U.S. history thus far.)

But let’s just look at it from another angle; what if Obama lost the popular vote but won the election through the electoral college? If you look at the polls thus far, it’s certainly possible...perhaps as likely as a McCain victory, I think. Would this be as great a disaster?

Hell yes it would.

The last two Presidential elections have been so close that it almost makes no difference. Hell, it didn’t make a difference in 2000. The voting public has shown itself to be sharply, and nearly evenly, divided, bitterly divided. One of the main reasons I have supported Obama for so long has been that I can see him as helping to heal this gaping wound on the body politic; I can’t see John McCain doing the same. I see a McCain presidency as continuing the divisiveness that has come to characterize American politics, and I see that as a very bad thing indeed.

Most of this changes if Obama wins through the electoral college but looses in the popular vote. In that case, any hope of healing this nation will have gone bye-bye and we will remain a bitterly divided, mutually disrespectful, mutually antagonistic society. I fear that. I fear what the consequences of such an election might be.

In light of this, I would find it difficult to accept any President who won under those conditions. So in that instance...and that instance only...I would favor John McCain over Barack Obama. But while it’s possible, I think it extremely unlikely. I think that Obama is likely to win both the popular vote and the electoral college. The next most possible event would McCain loosing the popular vote but winning through the electoral college; possible, but also extremely unlikely.

But then, I never thought Bush would defeat Gore in 2000. I still don’t think he did. So much for my ability to predict elections...

The Blues Viking

The opinions here expressed are mine and if you don’t like them you can get your own damn blog.