Pre-Election Jitters (November 2008)
Friday, February 4, 2011 at 1:49PM 11/2/2008
(via email) C -
I'm not sure this is anything I should share with anyone else at this critical juncture, but you know me well enough to suspect how a "novelist's" imagination might get the better of him. I only hope that's the case.
I've been haunted the last few days and sleepless nights about an election stolen by Republican operators who have been planning for such eventualities for years. They've hired hackers, co-opted local election boards, and infiltrated voting machine companies. And I have this sense that there are hundreds, if not a thousand, retained lawyers poised all across the country with briefs and injunctions stuffed in their briefcases and racked up in the 'outgoing' trays of a thousand fax machines. 'SEND' buttons are blinking ready.
I watched the HBO movie Recount for the third time a few weeks ago, and then saw (the genuine) Ron Klain's name on list of prospective Obama White House staffers. It's almost as if the movie isn't over yet.
Talking heads on the morning financial programs all insist how regardless the election's outcome, markets should show some stability (if not improvement) once things are decided. But I have this nightmarish fear that regardless the vote tallies, somehow results will be tainted, and this thing will not be settled for months. Millions of votes will be challenged; millions more tossed out in Ohio and Florida.
Republicans cannot allow Obama to achieve a Reaganesque victory and mandate. They've already set the scene with the obstacles they've put in place for new registrations, military and overseas voters, and complaints about ACORN. Press releases are drafted. McCain has surrounded himself with nut-jobs who care little enough for their own candidate and even less for the nation's and the world's perceptions.
The networks and papers will declare for OHB early Tuesday evening, but I'm sincerely afraid that by 9 AM Wednesday morning the cart will be lying overturned beside the road, apples strewn everywhere.
There's a bedtime story for you, suitable for the Halloween weekend. Did you see that the remake of "The Day the Earth Stood Still" will be released just after Thanksgiving. I just hope no one will need to comment on the coincidence or its appropriateness come early December.
Talk to you soon,
Tom