Wake Up and Cringe: Election 2006

It's 5:45 on a Sunday morning, and I'm up worrying about Election 2006. No one can say I don't live the glamour. Once again, the situation calls for the #1 question in all of life: How weird is this going to get? The problem for me is that it's a collision between what I suspect rationally and what I believe emotionally. The big creature from the bottom of the swamp is going to come up to the surface in early November and show which one is right. I should add that the idealistic, emotional side of my brain is currently on an extended losing streak. I really just keep it around for old times' sake. Here are three ways this could go:

1. The American system will work, despite a severe battering, and the House and Senate will swing back to the Democrats. Even if it is just the House, this will allow some kind of impediment to the monsters who run free in Washington. This is my idealistic, naive, emotional best hope for what could go down here. The wisdom of our forefathers will come through once again and America will self-correct. By the way, I am fully aware of all the arguments that this still won't make a difference. America has been lost anyway. I've even read that the powers will allow it just to continue the charade of a constitutional America as they prepare to take this country further into fascism. We'll continue on into some new world order where the nation state is as obsolete as black and white TV. As you can probably sense, my idealistic side is not doing all that well these days.

2. There could be an October surprise in which Rove and company pull something so demonically clever that the forgiving public actually says, "These guys aren't that bad after all." The system works in the sense that democracy prevails even though it wouldn't have happened without some grand trick. I could accept that because in the final analysis you have to acknowledge the public's right to be stupid. That is the true threat of television, by the way - that with enough money and drama a vast amount of people can be made to believe in something that is diametrically opposed to their best interests.

In fact, that is Job Skill #1 for the Bush administration: The ability to manipulate lies to achieve the desired effect. When Karl Rove has a good day it is not because he helped the American People through good government. It is because he did something slick that put one over on the public. This is the high he has chased for decades and in 3 weeks he faces his last big injection. Of course, 2008 will be huge for him, too, even though W. won't be running. Rove wants badly to hand off to another Republican, but at least this team of cretins will be gone. That's part of our forefathers' wisdom not even these arrogant little jerks will try and ignore. I have to believe that anyway.

Of course, it's not just one slick move that Karl Rove celebrates when he gets his rush - when the high of another success courses through his unhealthy veins. It is the end result of 100 thousand moves. Make that 1 million. 1 million little plots to exert power and influence all designed to merge at the same time on Election Day. He's been working on this for years. In 3 weeks, we'll see the big cake come out of the bakery, and the icing will shine, and all the candles will be lit.

3. The Washington Post has an article about how confident President Bush and Rove appear going into this. I believe the phrase is "inexplicably upbeat." That brings us to the outer limits of the question: How weird is this going to get? One other phrase in the article sent a chill up my spine. The paper assumes their confidence is "based on Bush's and Rove's electoral record and knowledge of the money, technology and other assets at their command." Ahh, the technology at their command. I don't think we're talking about television anymore. The favorite word of Bush supporters is "debunked" as in, "Those stories about stealing the elections have been debunked." Never mind that a computer expert has appeared before Congress describing how a current Republican Congressman hired him to write a 51-49 voting-machine hacking code back in Florida 2000. The stories have only been debunked in the sense that the PR machine says they're not true.

Now we get to the scary part. I have often voiced my opinion that this country has been hijacked by an internal enemy - one that makes the terrorists look tame. This group of Neo-Cons is on a power binge to run the world. It sounds like a bad movie plot, but the rational part of my brain senses it is true. I also believe it is the trusting and basically decent side of the American People that prevents this from being seen for what it is. We simply don't want to believe it. This experiment in democracy has been so sweet that it's like a beautiful romance and we don't want to see the signs that it's almost done. We've had it good - better than any other group of people in the history of government.

Unfortunately, these last few years, we have returned to authoritarian rule - we have a dictatorship in which one man can essentially do anything he wants in the name of national security. To get here the Neo-Cons have had to do a bunch of horrendous stuff, including participate in 9/11. What? They would be involved in the murder of 3 thousand innocents? Listen, hundreds of thousands of people have died because of this group. Trillions of dollars have been stolen, and America, as we know and love it, has probably been lost. It's like waking up alone one morning, and that beautiful romance is done.

All this sounds a little crazy, but that's my rational - not emotional - reaction to what has gone on. My emotions do not want to believe this is true. I just want to wake up and have things back to where they were. I don't want to be up this early on a Sunday morning, but I'm worried. I suspect the elections of 2006 will be rigged, and this time - unlike 2000 and 2004 - it will be impossible to ignore. This will be blatant. Everyone will know it. The big creature from the bottom of the swamp will be staring us right in the face as if to say, "Whatcha going to do now?"

When the recent Mexican elections were rigged by the same company - the same people - who stole Florida in 2000, there were vast protests. I don't know what could happen here. I suspect that shortly after Election 2006, the American People will be forced to confront the vile corruption of the Bush administration like never before. The wretchedness will be out in the open and what happens next will be up to us. Karl Rove will be coming down off his high, and he'll be monitoring how well the crime went down - tracking how many people are in the streets. He'll probably be asking himself, "How weird is this going to get?"

White House Upbeat About GOP Prospects - washingtonpost.com