Tell People You are for McCain

Hear me out. I think the polling is wrong and that we may be in a little trouble. If you heard this story on NPR you're probably agreeing with me. In the story they took a group of undecided voters, talked over the issues and then had a vote. At the end, regardless of testified affiliation, all the white people voted for McCain. This apparently has a name: "The Bradley Effect" over an African American candidate who lost a California election after leading in the polls - due to race issues.

In this case the polls are closer than that to begin with. I'm a little scared. I really think we could use a Democratic administration to re-calibrate and move out some of the staffers. McCain in all likelihood wouldn't exactly be another four years of George W. Bush, but he wouldn't have the motivation to clean house as thoughtfully as Obama. And the house, well, it's dirty.

Interestingly I heard a piece on This Week that was a little encouraging about the McCain scenario. Basically their take was that the Congress will almost certainly tip more Democratic, so even if McCain wins there probably won't be a McCain Economic plan or a McCain Foreign Policy or a McCain Social Security Revamp, or a McCain Health Plan because Congress likely wouldn't pass any of it. We'd be back to the gridlock of the 80's. In some ways, gridlock is nice.

But as nice as that silver lining is, it wouldn't protect us from poor Supreme Court choices, undo eight years of nefarious executive orders and partisan personnel decisions and just generally change the culture of the Federal Government we need so badly. America really needs an Obama win.

Which brings me back to the point: tell people you are voting for McCain. If you really have nads, tell them you are voting for McCain because you don't think the country is ready for a Black President. We need the McCain people to relax and the Obama people to really step it up. With everything so close the danger doesn't appear as imminent as it could be due to the Bradley Effect. They need to be more motivated. If the polls skew Republican, and common public discourse becomes about race then maybe the last few weeks of the contest can get the real injection of energy it needs.

Do you remember Bush vs. Dukakis? SNL did a debate spoof from that election and at one point after Dana Carvey as Bush answered yet another questions with "Stay the course, a thousand points of light, stay the course" Jon Lovitz as Dukakis turned to the camera in an aside and said "I can't believe I'm losing to this guy." I can't help but think that if things continue as they are, at the end of the last debate, Obama will turn to the camera and say the same thing. To many of us losing to McCain is frankly unbelieveable. But if the Democrats don't step it up that's exactly what's going to happen.

Do your part. Make them work harder to win.