SpeedBalling

Journalism is not a profession or a trade. It is a cheap catch-all for fuckoffs and misfits - a false doorway to the backside of life, a filthy piss-ridden little hole nailed off by the building inspector, but just deep enough for a wino to curl up from the sidewalk and masturbate like a chimp in a zoo-cage.

[I don't even have to give an attribution for that]

Thank god this election cycle is almost over. I think that I finally understand why so many Americans don't vote. They secretly hope that by refusing to join in playing the election's game, that it may eventually go away, to never bother them again.

This year - they say - is different. People are excited, eager, and frothing at the mouth like rabid beasts for their opportunity to descend upon the polls and cast their vote. The reason for this, I suspect, has something to do with the roll voting actually plays in our political system.

The Vote, by nature, is not a mechanism for elevating individuals to power. People are quite motivated and capable of seeking power through means other than the dull trappings of democracy. What voting is then, at its core, is a mechanism for removing people from power. And by that reasoning, any surge in voter interest in an election is almost certain to bode ill for whoever happens to be holding office come election day.

This simplistic musing is just one of the reasons why I am now more confident than Terry Mcauliffe that John Kerry is simply counting down the days till victory. Another reason may be this new supply of speed that I have just tapped into, but who really knows these days.

Now, getting back to the quote that I lead with. I felt it was appropriate, because the level of bullshit in the press is hitting new highs almost as frequently as I am.

Hawaii, and Arkansas are in contention... There are 31.2 scenarios that could lead to an electoral college tie - to be broken by Tom Delay's HoRs... Massive Republican disenfranchisement efforts... coordinated breakins of Republican offices... A demented Republican-hater attempting to run over Kathleen Harris in his Cadillac... (that is true actually)

I have said it before, many a time, and I will say it again: Bush lost in 2000, and there is no good reason to believe - based on his record - that he will win this time.

I also occurs to me that I once made the claim that "If Rumsfeld is still Secretary of Defense on election day, then GWB will be our next President."

Now, I won't go so far as to say that those two statements don't have a somewhat contradictory theme, but they are not necessarily mutually exlusive.

As history has shown, winning an election does not make one president, and it may turn out that losing two elections doesn't necessarily disqualify you from at least beginning your second term in office. Despite my supreme confidence that Kerry will win, I am somewhat less sure that he will be our next president.

The greatest weight on my confidence in a Kerry presidency is Florida. Regardless of polling that is favorable to Kerry, and what I believe will be a massive Democratic turn out, my gut instinct is that Florida will go for Bush - by any means necessary.

If the President really does have Florida locked down, then he is playing the rest of the electoral college game with the same cooked odds as a gambler holding an ace up his sleeve. The simple fact is that any way you stir the pot the EC is very favorable to Bush, if you take Florida out of contention.

All that remains now is the agonizing wait. I try not to think about all of the evil schemes and plots that may come to fruition on election day, or of the possibility of nightmarish court wranglings over voter eligibility that result in months of indecision, and culminate with the elevation of the losing candidate to America's highest elected office for the second consecutive time.

If any of those things do happen, don't expect me to write about them. Because if Kerry isn't the decisive winner by early Wednesday morning, I will either flee the country, or spend at least the next three weeks shooting smack in the basement of a condemned house.