I had no problems voting at my appointed polling place this morning. I’ve been a registered voter in Great Falls, Virginia for about ten years, I vote in every election, it’s a rather affluent community with no significant minority populations and I’m self employed. Consequently, the polls are very well equipped with lots of recent vintage voting machines, all of them in a fine state of repair and likewise very adequately staffed; furthermore, it was easy for me to arrange my schedule so as to arrive around eleven, where I had to wait a grand total of eight minutes and seventeen seconds before being signed in, duly certified and shown to a voting booth. For the edification of those of you who waited stoically in line for hours outside in questionable November weather, only to find a coterie of obvious criminals staffing your polling place, smirking as they jerked you around like a dog on a rope, and then, who were eventually furnished with a totally dilapidated, broken-down piece of crap that probably recorded votes for Herbert Hoover with which you were expected to exercise your inalienable right to choose those who govern you – well, my experience this morning is how the other half votes.
I worked rather late, of course, in order not to lose income due to sleeping in on Election Day, meeting with clients and preparing deliverables until well after the dinner hour. In fact, I even had a consultation meeting during dinner itself – at an Ethiopian restaurant – with a couple of Somali diplomats. The Ethiopian food was their idea. They can’t get it at home.
So, I didn’t return to my house until about ten forty-five, when I, like nearly everybody else had already done by then, settled down on the couch with a frosty beverage to watch the election returns. No sooner had I switched on the remote at the stroke of eleven p.m., however, than I saw that Virginia had fallen to Obama; the network news organizations were all projecting Obama as the President-elect; Obama supporters were going bananas coast to coast; jubilant foreigners across the globe, no doubt relieved and happy that America had once again proved itself concurrently inspiring, inscrutable, unpredictable and uniquely insane were dancing in the streets of their respective exotic cities and towns; and, of course, the pundits on every channel were beginning to talk about the biggest and most humiliating Republican rout since Barry Goldwater played Custer to Lyndon Johnson’s Sitting Bull. And no sooner did all that pandemonium break loose, than my land line telephone rang, and from caller ID, I knew it was Robert “Mike” Duncan, Chairman of the Republican National Committee.
Tom: Hi, Mike.
Duncan: Tom? Tom Collins?
Tom: Yeah, sure, that’s who you were calling, wasn’t it?
Duncan: Yes, it was, but how did you know it’s me?
Tom: Caller ID.
Duncan: I’m in your caller ID?
Tom: Sure. Lots of people are, Mike. My condolences.
Duncan: Huh?
Tom: My condolences on the impending demise of the Republican Party as it has been known since 1948.
Duncan: What’s this? Does your caller ID also tell you what your callers are calling you about?
Tom: No, Mike, but when my caller ID says its you and it’s election night 2008, I hardly need any electronic assistance to know why you’re calling.
Duncan: All right, I understand. The first thing I want to do is book an appointment with you tomorrow – for a prominent Republican.
Tom: Sure – I have a two hour block right after lunch reserved for whichever high-ranking Republican the party wants to send.
Duncan: You do?
Tom: Of course. No point in setting aside time before noon. You guys are all going to be up into the wee small hours. Even if it’s obviously hopeless, none of you will manage to get to sleep.
Duncan: And you were so sure we’d call, you blocked out two hours of your schedule ahead of time?
Tom: Hey, I figured, by this time of night on November 4th, if it I wasn’t sitting here talking to you, I’d be sitting here listening to Howard Dean. Not very likely, of course. But you never know, and I’m sure that if the Republicans managed to ah… let’s say, pull off the biggest American political miracle since Dewey defeated Truman, Dean would be raving and screaming and yelling “Eee-Yaaaah” like a Pentecostal full of rattlesnake venom and strychnine when the Fourth of July falls on a Sunday.
Duncan: But you weren’t expecting that, eh?
Tom: Oh, come on, Mr. Chairman – like you were expecting it?
Duncan: No, no, I don’t think I could get you to believe I was.
Tom: So, I should pencil you in for tomorrow at twelve-thirty?
Duncan: Pencil in an RNC representative, anyway. If I can’t make it, we’ll be sure to send somebody else.
Tom: Oh, you mean, like Sarah Palin, maybe?
Duncan: No, I don’t think so. They tell me the way she’s taking all this, she’s almost certain to be… um, indisposed.
Tom: Really?
Duncan: Yeah. Keep it under you hat, Tom, but when they gave her a packet of plane tickets back to Alaska a couple of minutes ago, she tore them up and threw a temper tantrum that would have embarrassed Donald Rumsfeld. She ripped down the drapes, overturned the furniture, threw nine pieces of McCain-Palin memorabilia through the wall and kneed one of her male handlers in the groin when he tried to restrain her – all of it accidentally, of course.
Tom: So she really is as spunky as they say.
Duncan: You don’t know the half of it. When Tracey Schmitt finally showed up and tried to straighten things out, Palin [expletive]-slapped her so hard, she fell backwards over a buffet cart loaded with lobster thermidor. Then Sarah started ranting about what she considers the numerous shortcomings of East Coast seafood, right in front of one of Olympia Snow’s senior staff!
Tom: Gracious!
Duncan: She said the Atlantic Ocean is polluted with sewage from Blue State Gomorrahs full of AIDS-infected Sodomite liberal Democrats and that Maine lobsters taste like the… uh… various unsavory products of their… ah, unforgivably sinful activities.
Tom: My word! What happened next?
Duncan: Palin chugged three beers in two minutes…
Tom: Genuine hockey mom, that woman.
Duncan: Hockey moms don’t get any more authentic than her.
Tom: And then?
Duncan: Then she demanded to know “Why doesn’t McCain just call some of those high-ranking military officers he’s so [expletive] good [expletive] buddies with and go out in the streets with some troops and take charge of things in Washington before that [expletive] uppity [expletive] gets together with that [expletive] Nancy Pelosi and that [expletive] Harry Reid and they start passing laws forcing white girls to have perverted sex with terrorists in government-funded triple-X porno films made to finance welfare payments, garden apartments, food stamps, driver’s licenses, Japanese cars, health care services and free Ivy-League college educations for illegal immigrants?”
Tom: What an image! I tell you, that woman sure knows how to scare the euphemism off and/or out of American voters. Too bad the stock market crash came along when it did and left most of the American voters unable to afford to buy new euphemisms to replace the ones scared off and/or out of them, and/or otherwise soiled and/or damaged in the process.
Duncan: Well, that’s hardly Governor Palin’s doing!
Tom: Oh no, that mess on Wall Street is certainly not her fault – not by any stretch of the imagination. I’m sure that if America wasn’t faced with the multiple, horrific and terrifying specters of ubiquitous unemployment, rampant economic stagnation, omnipresent financial ruin, and massive, nation-wide evictions, the time honored and venerable standard Republican strategies of appealing to those great and legendary characteristics of American racism, bigotry, greed, vanity, xenophobia, intolerance, repressed sexuality, ignorance and unfocused fear of the unknown would have worked like a charm, just as they have so many times in the past for great Republican leaders like Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and both of the Presidents Bush.
Duncan: Right. Who knew?
Tom: Exactly. So how’s McCain taking it?
Duncan: Actually, we’re more than a little bit worried about him, too.
Tom: Why?
Duncan: He appears to be in denial.
Tom: In what way?
Duncan: He behaves like the whole thing is a comedy sketch, and every few minutes, something someone does or says sets him off, and he starts acting like whatever it was they did or said reveals the whole thing really is just a comedy sketch – one with a dynamite, hilarious punch line that sends some imaginary audience he’s envisioning into huge, spontaneous, heartfelt and genuine peals of raucous laughter…
Tom: Yes, yes… and then?
Duncan: Then he waves to the imaginary audience and shouts “Live, from New York – it’s Saturday Night!”
Tom: Doesn’t sound like denial to me.
Duncan: No?
Tom: Absolutely not. Sounds like delusional dementia. Not that I’m a psychiatrist or anything, but really, you ought to have a shrink examine him before he hurts somebody – and that would most likely be himself, you know.
Duncan: So I don’t suppose it could do any good to ask you to come here to Arizona and meet with him tomorrow.
Tom: We’ve already had a telephone conference – and fairly recently, at that. No, I think if what you just described is transpiring, the good senator’s first appointment tomorrow morning should probably be with Doctor Haloperidol.
Duncan: Sure, okay. Hmmm – Halo Peridol – what kind of name is that, anyway – Hungarian or something? Do you have his number? Can he get out here to Arizona on short notice like this? And, oh yeah, does he take Blue Cross/Blue Shield?
Tom: Ah, well, tell you what – get John’s primary care physician in Arizona to call me and I’ll give him all the relevant contact information.
Duncan: Gotcha, good buddy. Will do. Oh, my God! What the [expletive] was that?
Tom: What was what?
Duncan: Son of a [expletive]!
Tom: I beg your pardon?
Duncan: No, no, not you, Tom, I was talking about some other son of a [expletive]. You know Sarah’s daughter – the teenager who’s knocked up so bad she looks like she’s running a one girl watermelon-carry marathon?
Tom: You mean Bristol?
Duncan: Yeah, her. It looks like Sarah just overheard this rumor that’s going around.
Tom: Which rumor?
Duncan: The one about how, if Sarah didn’t win, that knucklehead boyfriend of Bristol’s – the guy who got her looking like a pumpkin wearing a K-mart wig on top of a gunny sack with a pair of grapefruits, a beach ball and two ultra-jumbo plastic bags of marshmallows in it walking around on stilts – is going to break off their engagement! And now that she knows she’s lost, Sarah’s gone ballistic!
Tom: What’s happening? I can hear things breaking in the background!
Duncan: Yeah, I have Palin’s entourage and McCain’s entourage on multiple video feeds, Web cams, speaker phones, you name it. That’s Palin on the rampage… no, wait, both of them are losing it, I think…
Tom: Can’t Todd do something about Sarah?
Duncan: They can’t find him… Wait! I’ve got Sarah’s Secret Service team leader – he’s texting me on my Blackberry! Todd was hiding in the men’s room! They’re dragging him out, but he’s resisting – says no man in his right mind would go near his wife when she’s like this. Yeah, there he is, on the security camera feed from the hall outside the rest room… Jesus Christ, what the hell was that?
Tom: I heard it too; sounds like Palin just pushed an upright piano down a flight of stairs!
Duncan: No, wait… it was McCain pushing a baby grand!
Tom: Mother of God! Whatever happened to the notion of nobility and grace in the face of defeat?
Duncan: Collins! You can’t be serious! We’re Republicans, remember?
Tom: Oh, right. Sorry. What’s all that yelling?
Duncan: Hold on, I’ll check. Hey! You over there at the McCain rendezvous point! What are you… All right, yeah. Okay. Tom, it seems that party operatives just dragged in an executive from Diebold’s voting machine division. They’re demanding that he apologize to McCain. Wait a second… McCain’s sees him… he’s groveling at McCain’s feet, begging forgiveness, now he’s licking the soles of McCain’s shoes, desperately pleading for Diebold’s federal contracts… [Expletive]! McCain dumped a champagne bucket of half-melted ice on his head! Now he’s pelting the poor devil with canapes – he’s whining, crying, bawling like a baby, crawling toward the door on all fours, begging McCain to stop! But he won’t stop! Here he comes with an enormous platter of wild-caught Alaskan salmon! Watch it! Watch it! Get out of the way! Get out of the way! It’s terrible! Get out of the way, please; this is the worst of the worst post-election sore loser behavior ever! Oh my Jesus! It’s a terrific crash as the platter hits the floor – there’s smoked fish everywhere! Oh, the humanity!
Tom: But what was that other horrible noise? If I was of Irish descent, I’d probably swear I just heard a banshee, but since I’m not – did somebody just dip a rabid wolverine’s tail in kerosene and light it up with a blowtorch?
Duncan: No, what you heard was Sarah Palin screaming in rage.
Tom: You’re sure?
Duncan: Positive. I’ve heard it before.
Tom: You have?
Duncan: Yeah, when John suggested she return all those expensive clothes she bought with RNC money.
Tom: Damn! I told John not to try that!
Duncan: So did I, but he wouldn’t listen.
Tom: And that other sound, just now – who’s castrating a Holstein calf while skinning it alive with a dull kitchen knife?
Duncan: That’s Todd. Making all that ruckus, of course, not hurting any poor, innocent little barnyard… [Expletive]!
Tom: Lord have mercy! What in the hell was that?
Duncan: McCain’s gone after an intruder! It’s a man – with a tape recorder – he must have snuck in; oh, my God, no! I think they’re saying he’s a reporter from National Public Radio! Jesus [expletive] Christ on a crutch; now McCain’s got the tape cassette out of the guy’s machine and he’s shoving it… No! No! No! Stop him! Do you hear me? This is Mike Duncan at RNC Headquarters! Somebody! Anybody! Someone stop McCain! Stop him! Stop him, now! Now, for God’s sake!
Tom: Mike!
Duncan: What!
Tom: Send Cindy in to get John out in front of a crowd and some TV cameras and concede the election – pronto!
Duncan: You think that will work?
Tom: Believe me, Mike, it’s the only thing that will work!
And, of course, that’s exactly what Mike Duncan did. Ninety seconds later, Cindy McCain stepped in, slapped John and Sarah upside the head until they saw stars, talked some much-needed sense into them, and marched them out to face the klieg lights, a huge throng of their disappointed supporters, and the rest of the entire world. Their heads still spinning from Cindy’s little manual lecture, both of them did their parts – McCain read his concession speech flawlessly, and Palin, for once, kept her big mouth shut. By eleven thirty, the McCain-Palin campaign was just another surreal footnote in the already surpassingly bizarre history of American politics. And that, in my humble opinion, is exactly where it belongs.