Prelude To The 2012 Election

For the past few weeks, my answering machine has been working overtime filtering through the endless political robo-calls. And when the phone's not ringing off of the hook, I find myself cursing at the television as I'm bombarded with a constant stream of political ads. I find it amusing when one ad tells me to vote for Question 7 and then it's immediately followed by another ad telling me not to vote for it. I guess it's all moot anyway as I already know how I'm voting. Which makes me wonder how effective all of those robo-calls, TV ads and road signs really are. Have you ever voted for someone or something because some stranger on the other end of the phone line told you to?

Many celebrities choose to campaign for their favorite candidates. I guess that's ok. But I have to wonder how much influence these guys really have. For instance, in one unconventional  campaign ad, Samuel L. Jackson told us to "Wake the f*ck up!" and vote for Obama. No doubt, Samuel L. did play a "bad-ass mutha-f*cker" in Pulp Fiction, but does that really qualify him to tell me how to cast my vote? 

According to most of the polls, it appears that the Presidential election is going to come down to the wire. At the time of this writing, here are the latest poll numbers:

• Gallop: Romney 50% - Obama 49%
• Rasmussen: Romney 49% - Obama 48%
• ABC/Washington Post: Obama 49% - Romney 49%
• NBC/Wall Street Journal: Obama 48% - Romney 47%

I don't care how you slice, that's pretty damned close. But can we really put a lot of faith in these pools? I mean, didn't the polls have Jimmy Carter beating Ronald Reagan back in 1980? So will we have another Bush/Gore scenario or will we have a clear, undisputed winner when the dust settles sometime (hopefully) tomorrow? 

And let's not forget about the "Redskin's Rule". Since 1940, the outcome of the Redskins home game prior to the election has proved to determine the Presidential winner. Basically, if the Skins win, the incumbent party retains the Presidency. The lone exception to the "rule" was in 2004 when the Skins lost but the incumbent, George W. Bush still beat John Kerry. As a result, the Redskins Rule was revised to apply to the last President who was elected via the popular vote (Al Gore defeated Bush in the popular vote in 2000, but Bush became President by way of the electoral college).

Regardless of who wins, I am concerned about a few things. For instance, there have been threats of riots and looting if Obama should lose. Really? I honestly hope these are nothing more than boneheaded threats by a handful of mentally-challenged individuals. What purpose would rioting serve anyway? It certainly won't change the outcome of the election. This is America, for God's sake, not some Third World country! I'll bet the idiots who are making these threats won't even go out to vote!

I was also disappointed to read a recent piece about how the New Black Panthers will possibly be "monitoring" some polling places this year. Great! I guess since our sorry excuse for an Attorney General did nothing  about the intimidation in Philadelphia the last time around, the Panthers probably figured, "Hell, why not do it again?" I thought there were laws against this sort of thing.....

There's also news that thousands of voter ballots won't make it to military personnel overseas by the deadline. This really pisses me off. If anyone deserves their vote to be counted, it's our military. There's no excuse for not taking preemptive measures to assure that they get to cast a ballot.

As it stands right now, Obama is said to have 237 electoral votes locked up while Romney has 206 in his bag. Of course, to win, you need 270. I live in Maryland where Obama will no doubt win the state's ten electoral votes. But the "up-for-grabs" states that will have the most impact on the outcome tomorrow are Wisconsin (10) Florida (29), Colorado (9), Virginia (13) and Ohio (18).If all of these state's go to one candidate, the election is obviously over. If they're split, who knows....

Among other things on the local ballot (Maryland) tomorrow, we've voting on gay marriage, the Dream Act, Casino table games, redistricting, etc. Yes, there's a lot at stake. But no matter who or what you support, please exercise your right to vote tomorrow. It's the American thing to do!

kw