In case you've been totally ignoring the news (and this close to the election, who can blame you?) let me tell you there's a hurricane off the east coast.
Actually, as the storm comes ashore they're saying it's now a cyclone. Whatever it is, it's nasty. From what I hear, it's struck the Northeast the hardest, and damage is expected to be very serious, with storm surges very near the all-time record of about 10.6 feet (there will probably be a new record as you read this). Effects of this storm are expected to last as long as Tuesday night, November 6.
If that date rings a bell, it's election day.
Will this have any effect on the election? It's already had some effect; some states have suspended early voting, and transportation is going to be an issue (especially in places like New York, so dependent on public transportation and so likely to have its public transportation system disrupted, to what degree we can't yet say).
How much this storm will ultimately effect the election is anybody's guess. How it's going to affect the election after the fact is more certain. Whoever wins, expect the losing side to fall all over itself to blame the election results on the storm.
On the right, it's already started. Today I was shown a web page on which an amazing collection of right-wing posts about the storm, calling the weather everything from God's judgement on left-wing wickedness to a left-wing democratic conspiracy. (Check it out for yourself; I couldn't make this nonsense up!) But while conspiracy nuts on the right seem to dominate the pre-election blogisphere, I expect whichever side loses to try to blame their bad fortune on the storm.
This is what human beings do; blame bad fortune on circumstances beyond their control, on invisible beings that live in the sky or the ill will of monsters that live beneath the sea or on that malevolent statue that didn't get its virgin sacrifice last month or on a particularly disastrous alignment of the planets.
The truth is more likely to be far simpler; if the bad weather keeps voters home, it's probably because the weather was bad.
What concerns me is the prospect of this becoming yet another Never-Ending Election like we had in 2000. We were already facing the possibility of another constitutional mess, with a President who lost the popular vote yet won the electoral collage. Current polls show that this is not only possible, it's quite likely.
NOTE: The paragraph below contains errors, which I have noted in the red text at the end of the article.)
But here's what's happening now. I heard the Governor of New Jersey in an interview saying that they're trying to schedule a "make up day" for Friday (November 9), so that people who didn't get to vote early will vet still get the chance to do so. With the election being as close as it's expected to be, this could mean that the deciding votes won't even be cast until days after the election. It also means that the campaigns will continue to try to persuade voters for a few days after the election, a few days after we all hoped it would all be over with.
But the election isn't what we should be concerned with right now. There are a lot of people in danger. There are those who will place themselves in danger for the sake of people they do not know. Let's worry about them first and worry about the election second, at least for a day or so.
The Blues Viking
The opinions here expressed are mine and if you don’t like them you can get your own damn blog.
UPDATE 10-30-12: This is what I get for writing something based on something I heard on the radio while I was driving. It doesn't appear now that New Jersey Governor Christie was actually proposing a "make-up election day" after the election, which was what I originally said. What was being proposed was extending early voting into this Friday night, November 2. Should I have listened more closely? Probably, but I was driving and that took up most of my attention. No apologies for that, but I do apologize for any misconception. My bad. BV
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