Waiting for Tuesday, November 4, is like watching the seventh game of the World Series where the home team – a franchise with a storied history of failure – is six outs away from erasing a decade of pain and frustration. The home crowd is delirious, on the one hand, and yet a palpable current of apprehension ripples through the stands; these fans have been here before, standing so close to the post-game victory celebration that they could feel the spray of champagne in their faces, only to watch in disbelief as the home team stumbled, bumbled and fumbled it all away.
The clock atop the centerfield scoreboard seems frozen and the interval between each pitch stretches like an eternity. The home team has its ace closer on the mound, but the opposing batters keep fouling his best pitches into the stands. A base hit and a walk, a sacrifice bunt, and suddenly the pesky, never-say-die visiting team is threatening, a hit away from being right back in the contest. From the outfield bleachers to the luxury boxes above home plate, the current of apprehension becomes a wave of fear. Is another historic collapse about to happen?
Tuesday can’t get here quickly enough. If I have to watch another clip of stiff, ridiculous John McCain making that robotic thumbs-up gesture I’m going to puke on the living room rug; if I have to hear Sarah Palin contorting logic and twisting truth in order to link Barack Obama to the PLO, the Weather Underground, the Symbionese Liberation Army or Osama bin Laden himself, I’m going to become violent; and if I see Karl Rove – that disgraced, corrupt and lying toad –one more time, well, there’s no telling what I’m capable of.
Yes, it’s the top of the ninth and the home club has the lead, its ace closer on the mound, and its first world championship in sixteen long years in sight. Nothing can go wrong, right? It’s OK to breathe, to leave the room to get a cold beer from the fridge, to take the dog for a stroll…
No, hell no, don’t you dare move except to get out and cast your ballot. Don’t be misled by polls or pundits. Keep rolling those prayer beads in your hands, keep promising the Gods that you will turn yourself around if they just have mercy and let us win, keep lighting candles and burning incense until the decent voters of America drive a splintered baseball bat through the hearts of John McCain and Sarah Palin. But even when that happens – and it must happen or the dream of America is dead – don’t rejoice until the coroner pronounces McCain and Palin officially deceased.
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