6:30 – The early results look good for Bush. Up by 12% in Kentucky, a state Clinton carried twice. That can’t make Gore happy. The commentators from the left on Fox, Geraldine Ferraro and Mary Anne Marsh, are hastily asserting that this election will not give the winner a mandate. Hmm, who do they think will win?
7:40 – Things are looking gloomier for Bush. Florida is called for Gore. Bill Kristol, head of the UNDC (Useless Neocon Dope Committee), is mumbling dejectedly.
7:50 – Panic is setting in! Ten minutes to closing, and I haven’t gotten beer yet. Crimminy!
8:05 – Back in the armchair, beer procured. Fred Barnes says that it’s surprising that Republicans seem to be doing OK in the House, as they felt they had to pass a “Patient’s Bill of Rights,” prescription drug coverage, and reach a budget compromise with Clinton. In other words, they could only win if they acted just like Democrats. The neocon “success” formula: Sell your soul and lose anyway.
9:01 – Rick “I’m Not Hillary” Lazio goes down. Graphic shows that half of the people who voted for him were simply voting against Hillary. Good campaign strategy, Rick!
9:30 – Interview with Bush, looking relaxed and unconcerned. If Bush had been president in 1962, we would have had “That Little Cuban Missile Thingie,” not a crisis.
10:05 – Whoa! Florida back in play. Is there hope for Bush yet?
10:35 – Hillary speaks. The biggest cheer she gets is when she mentions abortion. Nothing like some baby killin’ to get the left excited. She says that our nation “owes” every resident and every resident’s family – I guess even if their family lives somewhere else – the tools they need to succeed. Well, Hillary, I could use a new table saw.
11:20 – Trent Lott says he’ll work with Hillary on issues “in the interest of the country,” i.e., watch your wallets.
12:00 – The rich are voting much more heavily for Gore than they did for Clinton. Mort Kondracke says, “The top 1% realize their wealth will be secure under Gore.” Well, of course – his investment banking friends will be bailed out by the middle class taxpayers, whenever they make bad loans to Third World countries or dopey academic economists. (Notice John “the champion of the little man” Corzine’s role in the LTCM fiasco. The fact that his Goldman Sachs buddy, Robert Rubin, was Treasury Secretary couldn’t have had anything to do with the bailout, now, could it?)
1:00 – Juan Williams says that Corzine’s victory shows that voters were worried that NJ was becoming “too conservative” under Whitman. Yeah, now there’s a radical right-winger. Why just recently I heard her say that she would allow self-service gas stations in NJ if she saw that the voters were “demanding them.” What a free market ideologue!
1:30 – Bill Kristol’s lips are writhing around like they’re two surgically attached earthworms.
2:17 – Fox calls Florida for Bush. Shots of lots of lefties crying in Nashville. Maybe it has been worth staying up. But if had known it would be this long, I’d definitely have gotten more beer.
3:00 – Waiting for Gore to show up in Nashville. His staff is attempting to find the right mix of medications to make him presentable. (A tip of the hat to Rob Long of “Letter from Al.”) Query: Why do people in crowds always wave to the monitor instead of the camera?
3:20 – Gore is late because they are “loading his speech in the teleprompter.” A euphemism for “he’s gulping more Valium.”
3:44 – Gore retracts his concession! Now the Ritalin has taken effect.
4:06 – Florida back out of the Bush column. Three counties are still counting absentee ballots. I picture a couple of senior ladies at a card table, the fate of the Republic in their hands: “Mabel, did I just say 538 or 583?”
Finally, at 4:30, I give up and go to bed. The final count doesn’t matter anyway. The policies that will be implemented have little to do with either candidates’ platform – witness the meaninglessness of “The Reagan Revolution,” or the “Contract with America.” Whatever the candidates say, government grows and liberty disappears, a little bit each year.
Nader is certainly correct in his assessment that whichever of the “two” parties wins, the people who rule America are the same. Unfortunately, Nader is so economically dim that he doesn’t realize that elite’s grip on power is maintained by the very big government programs he recommends. Without government “correcting the excesses of the free market,” who knows when a Michael Milken will come along and upset their apple cart? The chief “excess” of the free market that concerns David Rockefeller, John Corzine, Paul Volcker, Robert Rubin, George Soros and their ilk is that a truly free market might take an “excessive” amount of their wealth away.
Every four years, the elite put on this spectacle for the masses. The “true believers” in each party are their useful idiots (don’t feel bad – I was a useful idiot once, too!), filling the drama with passion. By convincing people that their choice “really matters,” that the gulf between the candidates is “tremendous,” by fixing their focus on a meaningless puppet show, they can keep them from noticing their masters’ chains around their ankles.
November 9, 2000
Gene Callahan is a regular contributor to mises.org.
2000, Gene Callahan
