Long Day's Gurney into Night: Reflections of Elections Past

As is the millennial tradition around here, I am preparing two cogent, civic-minded, Gergenesque posts reflecting upon the election outcome depending on which way things go.

Should John McCain prevail and the Republicans hold the White House, I shall favor the footlings with a chin-jutting chunk of eloquence entitled "Despaireth Not--The Uses of Adversity in a Season of Sorrow." I've got edifying quotations from Cicero, Seneca, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, and John Wayne from The Sons of Katie Elder all lined up, just waiting to be slotted in.

Should Obama triumph, I'll be ready with a little hiphop number in prose called "What Do You Think of Community Organizing Now, Pasty-Assed Motherfuckers?" It's quite the house-rocker, though were Obama to win by only a few paltry points, I might have to 'humble' it down to conform with the new national mood of phony-baloney centrism.

Election nights have not been kind to us these last two cycles. In 2000, my wife and I attended a musical adaptation of Captains Courageous starring Treat Williams--a worthy, but hopeless endeavor--and the murmur at intermission was that Gore had won Florida, hence the election. So we headed home in a deluded state of relief, not realizing that trauma that was to unroll (see the opening of Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 for a memory refresh).

2004 was worse. We had returned from the Animal Medical Center with our oldest ocicat, Roland, who had undergone abdominal surgery for the removal of a tumor. We had been cautioned that Roland should not be allowed to jump on anything or play with the other cats for a few days, lest he upset his system and dislodge his feeding tube. So my wife made a little bed in her study to spend the night with Roland, who, being a tough hombre beneath his princely mien, managed to methodically extract his feeding tube while she was sleeping until it was protruding about three inches out by pre-dawn. As my wife attended to Roland, she was aware of how quiet it was out, how quiet it had been on upper Broadway all night, and divined that Kerry must have lost. When I told her the bad news from Ohio that morning, she was unsurprised. As for me, I felt like putting on my mourning cloak and hurling myself into the Seine, but it was too far to fly for such a romantic, futile gesture. Besides, I had duties, responsibilities, including helping to look after Roland, who still had six or seven months to live.

Given such letdowns, I'm hoping that this election night will be a bit cheerier, a shade less angsty, and that the car honking on upper Broadway will be a victory serenade rather than the usual idiot cacophony.