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Election Projections
 As
I write, tomorrow is election day and
though I’m not foolish enough to vote, I can’t help sharing the
excitement. If you haven’t been listening to Rush Limbaugh, you have
no excuse for acting surprised when the Republicans win by a landslide,
contrary to what the drive-by media have been telling
you.  Rush
really has his finger on the pulse. Also he takes a lot of drugs.
The big
issue, of course, is the war in Iraq, which my old friend Fred Barnes of
The Weekly Standard has called “the greatest act of
benevolence one nation has ever performed for another.” I think I see
his point. Not only have we given Iraq democracy; now that Saddam Hussein
has been sentenced to hang, the Iraqis will have the satisfaction of watching
their former ruler at the end of a rope, his feet kicking spasmodically for a
few delicious seconds.
Even if
the Democrats carry both houses of Congress, this is a spectacle we are
unlikely to enjoy here in the Land of the Free. Instead, President Bush, like
President Clinton before him, will probably be allowed to live out his term and
then go into honorable retirement with as much White House furniture as he
and his wife can carry off with them.
Under
our form of government, Mrs. Bush will then be free to seek a seat in the
U.S. Senate and run for the presidency herself. If so, one of her potential
Republican rivals will probably have been eliminated: Senator George Allen of
Virginia has already destroyed his own White House prospects in a novel way.
He has come up with an entirely new ethnic slur, macaca, now
delicately referred to here in Virginia as “the M-word.”
Allen
blames his mother for teaching him this word and for not telling him that she
is Jewish. This means that he is technically Jewish too, so he can always run
for president of Israel. But he may not be too popular there either, since he
reacted with indignation when a reporter asked him if he was Jewish.
You’d have thought it was an accusation. As I write, Allen has only a
few hours remaining to anger other ethnic groups.
Allen
was supposed to win easy reelection this year, since this is a democracy and
he has lots of money, but his challenger, James Webb, has pulled even with
him through the simple but potent strategy of pointing out that he is not
George Allen. Allen has retorted that this is a lie, and that Webb, moreover,
writes dirty books demeaning to women, especially naked ones. Not only has
Webb surged in the polls; his books are selling like crazy.
![[Breaker quote for
Election Projections: It ain't over until Yogi Berra says it is.]](2006breakers/061106.gif) Allen’s
ads run something like this: “James Webb is an even worse bigot than I
am. I’m George Allen, and I was dumb enough to approve this
message.” In fact, Allen has surpassed even President Bush for goofy
gaffes. Only John Kerry can save him now.
But the
election is still unpredictable because of another factor, or what Allen might
call the macaca in the woodpile. CNN reports that many women aren’t
exercising “their hard-won right to vote.” Sensible girls, if you
ask me. “If voting could change anything,” someone has
observed, “it would be illegal.” Amen.
I mean,
think about it. The chance that your vote could change the result is
minuscule minus. And even if it did, the U.S. Supreme Court would have to
overrule it.
If the
vote is so precious, then the penalty for not paying taxes would be simply to
strip you of it. No need to put you in the clink. You’d appear at the
polls, they’d tell you, “Sorry, you haven’t paid your
taxes,” and you’d whimper, “You’re not really
going to take away my franchise, my most precious freedom, are
you?!”
If this
were enforced — if the citizen were faced with the stark choice
between paying taxes and being deprived of the vote — then either
voters or taxpayers would cease to exist. Care to guess which? The big
question facing the analysts every election day would be whether anyone
would show up. (“NBC now projects that a couple of senior citizens in
Florida may cast ballots.”) The cost of buying votes would soar
astronomically.
But we
can be sure of one thing: Rush Limbaugh would still vote Republican.
Joseph Sobran |
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| Copyright © 2006 by the
Griffin Internet Syndicate, a division of Griffin Communications This column may not be reprinted in print or Internet publications without express permission of Griffin Internet Syndicate 
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