An Election Prediction

Nothing’s going to happen. When I say nothing’s going to happen, I mean to the body politic in this country. They may be some furniture moving happening on Capitol Hill, and there may be a change in the majority, but the song remains the same. In some respects we may be a little worse for the wear. Regardless of the outcome there are battalions of lawyers already lathering up on both sides to claim fraud and malfeasance. This is now standard in our elections: Argue the process if you don’t like the outcome. The tin foil hat brigade works itself into a tizzy about electronic voting machines and election stealing. (Elections were stolen long before computers.) If their side loses there is a large chunk of the electorate that will believe it simply has to be fraud on some level. And, of course, the media is only too happy to gleefully report every person who ever disagreed with anyone. Case in point: There are about six people in this world that don’t agree with Saddam Hussein getting the death penalty, and all six are getting face time today.

The biggest mistake that will be made by Wednesday is that one side will claim victory. Whoever is holding the majority in Congress will be doing so by a thin margin. If the Democrats win they will most likely call it a mandate, which it is not. It’s is simply a lot of voters holding their collective noses. I have a sinking feeling that if Democrats attain the majority they’ll be like a teenage boy that finally gets a girl to sleep with him: So overwhelmed by the prospects that they fumble and fidget and squander the opportunity. If Republicans retain both houses they’ll say……I’m not sure what they could say with a straight face. “I promise we won’t suck as bad”?

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, we’re no better than we were on Monday. Regardless of what falls where the electorate will be about equally divided and really pissed off at the other side. Which is exactly what benefits both parties. The more time we spend throwing rocks at each other the less time we spend paying close attention to what elected officials do. We used to use divide and conquer on other countries. (Now we just conquer.) Seems to be working out pretty well domestically for the people in power.

I’m sure Athena would probably disagree with me. Over to you sis.

Ares