Someone, maybe it was Cruz or Bush or Rubio, but it could have been anyone, spoke of violence “in our communities” as the bigger issue than gun rights. It struck me how obviously “communities” is a metaphor for “ghettoes.” Reminded me of that dick Rudy Giuliani mocking Obama for being a “community organizer” at the 2008 Republican Convention. He was really saying “ghetto organizer.” He was really saying “N-word organizer.” Ha! Can you imagine that? A lowly N-word organizer. Now he thinks he’s gonna be president!

Now I’m remembering Giuliani’s objection to the pissed-on Jesus art exhibit way back when. Someone should have pissed on Rudy’s face. That’d be art.

The breakdown of history into arbitrary, discrete segments called decades or centuries seems silly and misleading. The Sixties didn’t start on January 1st, 1960 and end on December 31st, 1969, after all. Everyone knows they started when Ed Sullivan introduced the Beatles on February 9th, 1964 and ended when the Hells Angels sacrificed a young, black man at the Rolling Stones’ free concert in Altamont on December 6th, 1969. Though some argue they started when Sputnik flew on October 4th, 1957 and ended when man last walked the moon on December 14th, 1972. Each of these delineations may be ridiculous. Yet we know what we’re talking about when we talk about the Sixties. Or the Eighties, or the Thirties. Each of us has a clear mental picture, informed by a lifetime of schooling and media consumption, of what each era signifies.

But maybe it’s not so arbitrary. Maybe we don’t, in hindsight, read a pattern in a few signal events that happen to have occurred in the same decade, or century, and interpret that pattern to “mean” something, and attribute that meaning to the entire period. Something else is at play. We are conscious of these periods as we live them, and to some degree we behave—think, believe, act—in accordance to what we believe to be the prevailing spirit of the time. In other words, people did things in the Sixties—drop acid, listen to rock music, protest against the war—not just because that’s where the currents of history had carried them but because they were conscious that they were living in the Sixties and that doing those things, and feeling the way they felt, is what was expected of them as “citizens” of the decade. And when it became the Seventies—on January 1st, 1970, or at least within a few weeks of then—people started to do the sorts of things we now identify with the Seventies—snort coke, listen to disco, swap spouses—because they knew it was the Seventies.

President Obama will be remembered for having dragged the United States—much of it kicking and screaming—into the 21st century.

Had a thought while reading the latest scary article about the presidential race in the Times. Apparently, a third of voters believe Romney has become more moderate since becoming the Republican nominee. If so many voters believe that this 65-year-old, experienced politician has significantly changed his political views in the last six months, why are the polls so close—basically even? “Flip-flopper” has long been a damning label in presidential politics. But the difference between Romney and, say, John Kerry is that Romney is an avowed flip-flopper. I think the American public, by and large, see him as a gleeful opportunist, happy to change his tune to suit his audience, from the liberal voters in Massachusetts to the hyper-conservative ones in the Republican primaries to the moderate undecideds who are the prize target now. It’s OK because he’s doing it callously, connivingly. Like a man. Like a good old, Machiavellian leader. Kerry, of course, got the label hung around his neck in spite of his meek protestations. Like a pussy. Americans will respect—maybe even adore—all sorts of equivocation as long as it’s carried off brazenly. With balls.

Fortunately, the Obama strategy has been to take him at his word for saying he was “severely conservative.” As opposed to any politician who might win, that’s a specific politician who can’t win.

I stood in the corner of the Yankee Tavern, where the locals sit; there was a spacious pocket of calm there, by the window. The drunks going to the game seem to know not to invade it. I decided I didn't know any better.

I put my beer on the counter and scrutinized the scene outside. An older man with dark hair and a mustache, well dressed, lighting a cigarette. Brylcreemed, Billy Martin-looking guy. Could be a livery driver. Could be the King of the Bronx. Most of the passersby were the game crowd: families, old timers, Manhattanites and Jersey guys. Mixed up with them were the locals trying to go about their business: harried Dominican women with their kids, odd-job guys and b-boys. I watched a tired black man in a lime-green suit, a matching fedora and two-tone shoes in beige and white. He carried a plastic bag of groceries. Everybody's gotta take the groceries home.

An older black man in glasses and a cap turned from the bar to interrupt my reverie.

"Lotta commotion today. Lotta fuss," he said, putting his red wine on the counter.

"It's a big day!" I said. It was the first game at the new stadium, an exhibition with the Cubs.

"Yeah," he said warily. He launched into an ornery rant about the team: Tickets are too expensive; families have been priced out. The new luxury boxes are half-empty because of the recession so now they're gouging regular people to make it back. The Steinbrenners are making one last, big push for a championship so they can sell the team in the next two years, "while the gettin's still good." That's why we have these great new players.

"But we always picked up great players. Clemens, Johnson," I pointed out.

"Those guys were at the end of their careers," he said. "We're picking these guys up at the peak of their careers. Teixeira."

"Sabathia," I added. He was a hard man to disagree with.

He was dressed middle class and seemed well on his feet but he was missing most of his bottom front teeth. His tongue wriggled behind his lone remaining incisor as he spoke and it was difficult to look elsewhere. I'll not soon forget that tooth.

He moved on to the neighborhood, the burrough and the city as a whole. This Metro North station they're putting in, what do you think that's about? The South Bronx is turning into Westchester, that's what.

"New York City is fucked," he said.

We looked out the window for a little while.

"Listen. My wife has an iPhone that has 10 times the computational power of the computer that sent Apollo to the moon."

Ten times seemed to me to be an underestimation but it was enough to serve his point.

"She can get her e-mail anywhere she goes. Do you think Wall Street matters now? You don't need Wall Street. You could be in Peoria, Illinois."

"Business can be done anywhere now," I added helpfully.

"New York City is fucked."

He digressed further: the economy, politics, the environment. He bemoaned the coal and oil lobbies.

"If we don't do something about global warming right now, we're gonna be fucked, and we might still be fucked."

"We won't really be fucked for a while, though, right? Forty, fifty years?"

"How long?"

"Forty years?"

"I'm 72 years old," he said. "Within my lifetime, we're gonna see disasters from this thing. I work in energy. I know. Flooding of coastal regions. Manhattan? Battery Park? Forget about it."

"Wow."

"Manhattan will be totally fucked."

"I'm still relieved that Obama is in office," I offered. "As bad as things are, he seems to be the right person to—"

The man made a faint grimace.

"Obama has a chance. As long as he picks the right people. His Energy Secretary is very good. His Agriculture Secretary is good. But why you would want Larry Summers and Tim Geithner in charge of anything I can't understand. They're the ones who caused these fucking problems in the first place."

I cited Obama's talent for promoting consensus, for accomodating differing points of view. Again, the man's face soured.

"Accomodation isn't good," he said.

I tried to backtrack. "That might be the wrong word. But he listens to all sides. He can compromise—"

"There's always a wrong side. You don't want to listen to the wrong side."

It occurred to me that I'd assumed he was an Obama supporter—not just because he was black, not just because we were in New York City, but because in the past year I'm not quite sure if I've so much as been in the presence of a single person who did not support Obama.

"Listen, I'm a patriot. I love my country. I think we should bring back mandatory service."

"Military service or some kind of national service?" I asked.

He winced. "Any kind of service would be OK, I guess," he allowed. "I graduated high school in 1955 and then I went into the Army. The Army's the only place in the world that teaches you to get along with people who are not like you. When you're in the Army, no matter who you are, you only want one thing. Do you know what that is?"

"What's that?"

"To go home. All you want to do is go home. And the people you're with are the only people who can help you do that, and you've gotta help them too. If your commanding officer tells you to carry this and that to somewhere by tomorrow morning, you're not going to be the asshole who doesn't do it. If you don't do it, everyone is fucked. You have to find a way to work with people to get it done."

We were interrupted as one of the regulars, an older black woman, creaked off her barstool to say her goodbyes. I stood deferentially apart, giving ample berth to her ceremonious exit. After she was gone I approached again, nonchalantly, not sure if the conversation would resume. The man acknowledged me with a nod.

"Now McCain, the only reason I didn't vote for him was nuclear power. He wants to build all these nuclear power plants. Where you gonna put the waste? Nuclear power is like asking people to store their garbage in their homes. We'd all be fucked."

It struck me that he felt more kinship with McCain as a military man than with Obama as a black man.

"The other thing about McCain," he added, "is that he was tortured for six years. You can't have an experience like that without your brain being addled."

Finally, he put his empty glass up on the bar and gave hugs and handshakes to those remaining in his circle. He shook my hand: Great talking to you. Great talking to you, too. He walked out the door and past the cops and smokers and crossed 161st Street and went on down Gerard Avenue, past the stadium.

After months of worrying that Obama would not get elected, now you get the unnerving sense that he can't possibly be President - can he? It's not just the tedious, stubborn challenges to his citizenship, or that, of all things, the fucking swearing in was flubbed. It's this: Can all the pomp and ceremony and ludicrous, fawning deference that's reserved for American presidents really coalesce around him now? Over the past 16 years we've grown accustomed to the President as exalted clown - with Bush, the emperor had no clothes; with Clinton, the emperor had no pants. The elaborate ritual surrounding the office seemed more suited to these farcical figures - they were both versions of the grandiose, infantile King Ubu. It made sense that they had a special airplane, an outsize kitchen staff and guards outside their bedroom door. Part of what Obama brings to the White House is a seriousness, sobriety and prosaic approach - much in evidence in his inaugural address - that we might expect of a great college football coach but not of the occupant of this most curious perch atop our politics. In his life experiences, too, there is more for most Americans to relate to: community organizing (odiously disparaged by Rudy Giuliani at the Republican National Convention), teaching, dropping off the girls at school with a kiss. He is "a guy of the street," but not in the sense the McCain campaign intended. And now he is our president. Can it be true?

Among the many great things about Obama's inauguration speech today was his recognition of atheists: "We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus, and nonbelievers."

You have to lapse into a kind of death when you become president. You've gone abstract; you've become an idea. You can no longer live in your house or cook for yourself or drive a car or go to the movies or sit in an airport bar drinking bloody marys. You can no longer send or receive e-mail either, evidently - is there any surer sign that what I say is true? E-mailing in 2009 is akin to inhaling and exhaling the air. When you're not allowed to do it any longer, you know you've reached a different place. It could be a nursing home, where your few remaining days will consist of being administered medications, drifting about in your wheelchair in a baby-blue bathrobe, eating soft, bland foods, and watching television in a common room. It could be prison, where life consists of reading, lifting weights, and parrying the efforts of rapists by periodically exploding with brazen, heedless rage. Or it could be the presidency of the United States. How could such a person be a person, when you think about it? I believe any presidential acceptance speech, any inauguration, must be tinged with this: the solemn aura of the condemned man, the designated one, the sacrificial lamb.

The Nader

We were sickened when Ralph Nader cost Al Gore the election in 2000. We get chills imagining what a better world we'd inhabit if Nader had been just a bit pragmatic and thrown his support to Gore. We're outraged, now, at Nader's central claim - that there's no difference between Democrat and Republican, that it's like Coke and Pepsi, a Chomskian false choice. What profound differences there are, and would have been manifested these past eight years: on the environment; on the Constitution; on diplomacy; on governing, period. But there was always a part of me that respected the purity of Nader's views. His resolute stubbornness. His refusal to abandon principle even as a means to an arguably better end. It's the same part of me that whispers, Become a vegan or Throw out your TV. It's a faint, meek voice, masked by a thousand louder sounds, but daunting in its cold moral authority nonetheless.

So now it's sad to see Nader wonder out loud whether Barack Obama would be an Uncle Sam or an Uncle Tom (a point of view which was, poignantly, echoed by Al Qaeda in a statement by Bin Laden deputy Ayman al-Zawahri). Fox News's Shepard Smith scolded him for it in words that drip with smug, sanctimonious reproach, and Nader did a pretty good job of calling Smith out as a typical TV news bully and defending his view (Obama's got a history of siding with corporations, supports an increase in the defense budget that's desired by the military-industrial complex, has a tax plan that doesn't address the needs of the poor, etc.), but there's something very depressing about seeing this cranky old idealist becoming more marginalized by the minute and lashing out like a petulant child.

Ralph, after all this time, all this effort, all that it means and may yet mean for Barack Obama to become President of the United States, can you please just drop it for a second? For one second, man. Be generous. Lift your perpetually hunched shoulders, that gray face, and say something positive, something. The weight of your dourness, of your sobriety - it's too much to bear. We've appreciated your tireless rages on our behalf, your fuck you to the man, your secular sainthood. But something's passed you by now. You're not helping this world anymore.

Transition

The assembling of the cabinet, the ghostly authority exerted from a nebulous place. The sex-segregated White House tour. The ritual revelation of Secret Service code names.

Allentown

We were told to park at the international headquarters of Mack Trucks on Mack Boulevard. This was across the street from the UAW hall where the Obama campaign had set up tables in the parking lot, which in fact was only half-filled. We later learned that this was by design: They wanted people driving by to think that volunteers might still be needed, and so be tempted to stop and lend a hand. And so we found a space behind a row of gleaming new Mack tractors, and it felt good and fitting to have this brand - powerful, workmanlike, essentially American - quietly on our side.

There was a big bulldog on the wall of the headquarters and it lit up at night.

At the volunteer station there were hundreds of sandwiches in boxes on a table: ham and cheese, turkey and cheese, roast beef and cheese. Shrinkwrapped twelve-packs of bottled water. The utilitarian in abundance. Victuals, like those of a well-supplied resistance movement in wartime. I took a turkey sandwich and, along with about a dozen others, almost unthinkingly gravitated toward one of the organizers, a heavyset man named John. He thanked us and told us what we were out there to do: Get people to vote. We know we have the vote here, we know the polls support us. All we have to do is make sure people vote. And what if we see McCain supporters, or McCain volunteers? We don't want any arguments, we don't want any fights. Tell them have a nice day. Remember: This is their sad day. No need to make it worse.

They armed us with flyers and doorhangers and a map with our territory marked in Hi-Liter, and we went back across Mack and up the hill to the car. Our destination was a street of decrepit, broken-down rowhouses with peeling paint and cracks in the floors of porches. We saw two older white men and asked them what we'd been asked to ask everyone: Did you vote? Their manner was dismissive and ambiguous: It was unclear whether they had voted, or whether they were going to. One of them said, "I always vote." They seemed to support Obama, but maybe not. They were union guys, working guys. Lifelong Democrats. They indicated that everyone in the neighborhood was voting Obama. "Big surprise," one said, rolling his eyes. I knew at that moment that this was not strictly a poor white neighborhood.

For two hours we knocked on doors, then went back to get more maps and knocked for three hours more. Often there was no one home when we knocked, or maybe they didn't want to answer. Can't really blame them I suppose. Once I knocked on a screen door and could see straight down a debris-strewn hallway and into the kitchen, where a figure stood facing the other way. I knocked again. The figure remained, impassive, for a few more seconds then walked out of my sight at that deliberate pace with which we all move when we're in our homes and we know that we're alone.

"There's someone in there and they're ignoring me," I said to Sara, who was at the neighboring door.

"C'est la vie," she said.

Sometimes maybe the place was abandoned or condemned. Sometimes it was hard to say. I hesitated to knock on one door because it was so starkly forbidding that I was certain no one had lived there for months or maybe years. But it opened and a black face peered at me from the darkness.

"Did you vote?"

"Oh yes! Obama!"

Again and again, people told us they had already voted for Obama, or were about to go out and vote for Obama, or were waiting for their wives or boyfriends to get back home so they could both go vote for Obama. The day took on an air of celebration. People hooted at us from their cars, from across the street:

"Obama!"

"Obama baby!"

"Obama, Obama, Obama!"

A big, gruff, white biker type: Already voted, Obama. A white kid, dressed black in a bandanna, gold chain and oversize jeans: Obama. A middle-aged Hispanic couple: Just came back from voting Obama.

We met a fat, young white guy in a death metal T-shirt, arms covered in tattoos. He wanted Obama pins so I gave him mine. He'd voted but we urged him to tell other people to vote, his friends, anyone. A small woman who barely spoke English walked up and asked for directions to the polls and he told her.

We chatted with a middle-aged black woman who had just come back from voting.

"He better win. If he don' win there's gonna be..."

"Riots?"

"There's gonna be riots, that's for sure."

"I think he's gonna win."

"I sure do hope so, I sure hope so. Thing is, somebody's gonna try to, you know, go after him."

"I know. I think, I really think he's going to be well protected."

"I sure do hope so."

As people walked by she shouted out, "You vote yet, honey?"

"Obama!"

A white woman told us she wasn't registered to vote and seemed particularly jaded about this particular cycle. I tried to make the case for Obama anyway, lamely alluding to his tax breaks for the middle class.

"He's working for middle class people, working people," I said. I was afraid to say the word "poor."

"Middle class people? What about poor people like me?"

"Poor people too!"

She mentioned that she's a nurse and all her black coworkers are voting for Obama. Her eyes rolled like the other man's. She was a bit begrudging, almost like she didn't want black people to get a president. That somehow they'd capitalize on the situation and live the Life of Riley, undeservedly. Then her daughter and her daughter's friend came down the street and suddenly she brightened:

"My little girl loves Barack! She and her friend, they made T-shirts of him and wore 'em to school!"

She was glowing with pride, evidently immune to irony. I took a picture of her daughter (who, interestingly, looks a bit Hispanic) and one of her daughter's friend in their homemade Obama T-shirts, each one covered with the signatures of dozens of other kids like them.

The Sorry Dance

I descended into the depths of the Duane Reade on 59th and 8th, looking for where they might sell money orders. Amidst the aisles and aisles of candy, paper towels and soap. Around a corner, I nearly ran into a middle-aged black woman with short hair and glasses. I feinted to my left; she to her right. We were momentarily suspended in space and time. Finally we do-si-do'd.

"Sorry!" she said. "Dance."

It was a funny interaction and a funny thing for her to say. It got me thinking about other sorry dances.

Like Larry Eagleburger being forced to apologize for criticizing Sarah Palin. He'd originally told the truth - that she is obviously not ready to be Vice President. He didn't savage her - he's a Republican, after all, and often cited by McCain as one of five former Secretaries of State who support him (not that he can remember them all ) - but he made a very sober and lucid assessment of her obvious lack of preparation and know-how. Transparently, someone from the campaign then dressed him down overnight, read him the riot act. I don't know what they might have said to him. He doesn't have a political future - he's 78 years old. Did they torture him? In effect, they cut off his cock. They forced him to humiliate himself on Fox News, to bow down low, to sweatingly and haltingly take back everything he'd said in serene sincerity the day before. It's suggestive of dissidents of authoritarian regimes being forced to recant or die. The Nazis, the Soviets, the Khmer Rouge. The Spanish Inquisition. Convert or die. Confess or die. Those demonic - worse than demonic, really - bargains. You sell your soul but get nothing in return. Honestly, what did they tell him to scare him straight? Or is he just that weak?

So that's the sorry dance. It's the jangly dance performed by a fool when those he's desperate to please pepper the floor beneath his feet with bullets.

Fortunately, a stranger's riding into town.

Obama will win big today.

Nothin' Against the Man

I spent the end of the afternoon calling voters in battleground states: Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia. A disconcertingly large percentage of the numbers were out of service - either connecting to that future-robot woman's "I'm sorry, the number you are calling..." message or ringing for a while then abruptly shifting to shrieking electronic noise. Where did they get these fucking numbers? Are these the numbers from 2004?

Still others went to voice mail. Two giggling roommates reciting each word of their message in alternation before saying "Bye!" in giddy unison. An elderly woman in Ohio reciting hers in a singsongy near rap: "When-you-hear-the-beep, you-know-what-to-do..."

And a few answered. I dialed the number of a 29-year-old male in Ohio and a woman picked up, and cooly asked me who was calling. I explained that I was a volunteer for the Barack Obama Campaign for Change, and that I just wanted to talk about the election for a couple minutes, blah blah blah.

"He's deceased," she said.

"Oh? I'm very, very sorry to hear that. I..."

"He already voted, though. For Obama."

"Oh?"

"Yup. But now he's deceased."

"Really? OK. I... I'm sorry for your loss."

"Thank you."

"Goodbye."

"Goodbye."

Overwhelmingly, the people I spoke to were planning on voting, or already had voted, for Obama. Every person I spoke to in Ohio, in fact, had voted early for Obama. Dayton, mostly. Some were cheerful telling me this, some were terse and annoyed. But it was Obama, Obama, Obama. Finally, in West Virginia, I heard something different. An older-sounding woman picked up and I asked her for the male name on my list. Who is this? I gave her my spiel from the script.

"He's not here, and you wouldn't want to talk to him, believe me."

"We're happy to talk to anyone."

"Ha!"

"OK. Do you know who he supports in the el..."

"Lemme tell you, it's not gonna be that one."

I fucked up a bit with a Pennsylvania McCain supporter. She let me get through most of my spiel: Pennsylvania's gonna be real important in this election, I'd just like to ask a couple of questions if I can. Finally, I asked her who she was supporting.

"John McCain."

She said this in such an emphatic way that there was really nothing else to say. And in fact, there was nothing else to say in the script either, except "thank you" and "goodbye." But there she was on the other end of the line, awaiting words.

"OK, there you go. Well... Have a really great evening and..."

"Thank you."

"And, uh... good luck."

Just before I hung up I heard her on the other end of the line, in a tone of aghast outrage:

"Good luck?!?"

My most remarkable call was with a man in West Virginia, maybe 50 or so. He spoke in a mountain drawl and was a bit animated from the start, which made me afraid things might go bad. But it actually went something like this:

"Now listen, I ain't got nothin' against that man. Obama. Ain't got nothin' against him, ya hear?"

"Yup, that's great."

"I think I'm leaning a little bit to McCain."

I'd been wary, but I was surprised and encouraged by the words "leaning a little bit." I decided to depart recklessly from the script.

"Why is it that you feel that way?"

"Well, listen. I been hearin' this thing of how Barack Obama's gonna spread the wealth. And that is one thing I... That is one thing I cannot stand for. That is the one thing, I do not like that. Ain't got nothin' against the man."

"You know though, John McCain believes in exactly the same system of taxation that Obama was describing. That's the same system McCain believes in."

"Yeah I know, I know, but it's them words, ya know? Them words, spread the wealth."

"You think it's a poor choice of words."

"Yeah! Exactly. It's a poor choice of words. But it don't got nothin' to do with the man in any way! I been listenin' to him and he's intelligent, I like what he says mostly. Listen. I been a lifelong Democrat. But I voted for Bush in 2000 and in 2004. I voted for Bush in 2000 'cause Gore wanted to take my guns away, and ya see, I'm a hunter..."

"You know that Barack Obama specifically does not want to take guns away from hunters..."

"Yeah, I know that. I know that. Now, I did not vote for Kerry 'cause I hated Kerry. Hated the man. But then Bush wasn't so good neither."

"Exactly."

"Listen, some of my friends, they called me racist. I ain't no racist. But some of my friends, they called me racist 'cause in the primary, they asked me who I was votin' for, I said Hillary. Now, they accuse me of racism. I tell them, if I'd a voted for him they woulda accused me of sexism."

"That's a very, very good point."

"It don't matter to me what color you are or what gender you are."

"That's great, it's really great to hear that."

"It's just that if he means to take my money that I make and spread it around, I can't take that."

"You know that with Obama as president, you'd get a tax cut if you make less than $200,000 a year, right? And John McCain would be giving his tax cut to rich people. Obama's going to help working people keep more of their money."

"Yeah, I heard about that."

"And health care - he's going to save every family $2,500 on health care by fighting the insurance companies."

"Yeah, that's good."

"If you look at the issues, you can see how much more he can help people. See, the thing about a choice of words is that it's been a long campaign, and lots of things have been said, so sometimes someone uses a poor choice of words. Happens to everybody. But you gotta look past the words sometimes to see what the actual policies are all about. See who cares about the issues that are most important to you and to your loved ones."

"I know whatcha mean. I got nothin' against the man, nothin' against the man. I ain't decided about the whole thing, that's the truth."

"Is there anything else about Obama that you have questions about?"

"This one other thing, ya know, this thing I been hearin' that if Obama is elected it'll be him an' Pelosi an' whatshisname, uh, Henry, uh..."

"Harry Reid."

"Yeah, all of them together, that it ain't good for the country because they get to spread the money around anyway they like. But I dunno..."

"Yeah, I don't think it's like that. I think John McCain kind of feels like he's up against the ropes right now, and every day he tries saying something different, and that's because he doesn't have anything good to say to people about policies and what he would actually do."

"Yeah, I suppose it's like that, yeah. I dunno. I'm thinkin' 'bout it. I dunno what I'm gonna do."

"This has been a really great conversation, and it sounds like you're still thinking about things, and that's great."

"Oh yeah! I'll be thinkin' 'bout it, that's for sure. I won't know what I'm gonna do until I'm right up there in that booth."

"You've got a few days to think about everything, and, you know, obviously, on Tuesday, I hope you make the decision for Obama."

"You know what, I think I'm leaning in that direction."

He's Black!

The gnawing fear I have in my gut right now, about the election, is this: At the penultimate moment, National Guard soldiers will be called in to block the polls. They'll be arrayed in well-practiced formations around the perimeters, legs spread slightly, M-16s at the ready across their chests. Commanders will engage tactfully with the puzzled citizenry who'd hoped to exercise their franchise. They'll wave their arms: "No, no, no. Go home everyone. Go home peacefully, please."

"Why? What's going on?"

"No voting today, folks. Go home. Go peacefully."

"What do you mean, no voting?"

"There's no voting. John McCain has won. Go home."

"What do you mean he won?"

"There can be no election, people. There is no voting today. There is no voting for Barack Obama."

"No voting for Barack Obama?"

"He's BLACK. HE'S BLACK, FOLKS. The election is over. There is no voting. There is no voting for a black man. Go home."

Government officials and the Republican high and mighty will be on all the networks, asserting minute variations of the same message: "There can be no election today; one of the candidates is black. How dare anyone think that our nation might actually have gone through with this? Anyone who thought they could vote for Barack Obama is a fool. Of course they can't. He's BLACK. You didn't expect us to actually put our nation in that sort of peril, did you? You'll be glad we intervened. It's over now. Everyone remain calm."

There will be a flurry of outrage, but by the end of the afternoon we'll all grow tired, hungry. Docile. We'll cook dinner and eat it in front of reality TV, placing salty forkfuls in our mouths, masticating unhappily. We might cry a tear or two of shame. Really, what were we thinking? How naive, how stupid. To think we might have, today, voted a black man to the presidency of the United States! Of course they stopped us. Of course. What did we expect?

OK, that's my fear. If it doesn't happen, I think Obama's got a pretty good chance.



Illustration by Louise Asherson

I've been intrigued by John McCain's recent reactions to questions from his audiences about Barack Obama - in particular the episode where an elderly woman asserted to him that Obama is an Arab. It's "good," of course, that McCain corrected the woman by countering that Obama is "decent, a family man, a citizen" and so on (although he doesn't bother to challenge the premise that there's something wrong with being an Arab, which CNN's Campbell Brown, among others I'm sure, has spoken out about). On the other hand, the pressure on McCain to settle down his increasingly bloodthirsty, vehement audience has been great - he probably had to do something whether he wanted to or not. His decision to so so might have been calculated, even timed somewhat - he used it in the debate last night, to claim that he'd taken steps to elevate the discourse but that Obama's campaign hadn't (a weak and laughable tactic, but what else does he have?). And of course, this might have been among the last glimmers of his fading moral conscience. He has shown it in the past, after all. But what really strikes me is his demeanor before he contradicts the woman. Watch the video again. When she says she "can't trust" Obama, McCain nods impatiently, the way you do when you're hearing something you wish you weren't hearing but you have to indulge for some reason. And after she calls him an Arab there's a dreadful beat before he starts repeating, "No ma'am" and takes the mic from her. Watch his face - ashen, tense, rueful. I imagine that in that moment the wheels were turning furiously in his head: "Do I have to say something? Fuck, I have to say something. Goddammit." And he forces himself - a personification of the expression "bite the bullet" - to produce the words and the body language that in the end form a quite gracious gesture toward Obama, the way these kinds of gestures often come off when they are produced under great duress (again, apologies are owed to the millions upon millions of Arabs who may rightly be insulted). It's to his credit that he did it, but also to his discredit that it was evidently that difficult. It was a complex, powerfully dramatic moment - it could have been McCain saving his reputation, saving himself as a politician, saving himself as a human being. He'd probably like to think he was saving his campaign, but I don't think that's the case.

The All-American Witch Hunt

The increasing venom of crowds at McCain-Palin rallies indicates that a certain segment of the population has taken the innuendo and slanderous accusations of unscrupulous Republican campaign strategists completely literally. In other words, they believe that Obama is a Muslim terrorist. They imagine that through some strange and cruel chain of events, the evil "other" represented by 9/11 hijackers and by Osama bin Laden is now incarnate in the Democratic nominee for president of the United States. Many of these people already hold some form or other of Biblical apocalypse fantasy alive in their imaginations, so it is not hard for them to believe that God is testing, or Satan is tempting, the good people of our country in this election as some necessary step in a process that also includes the breakdown of our civilization (i.e., economy), a war with heathens in the Middle East, the End of Days (global warming?) and the Rapture. Considering this point of view, it's not terribly difficult to understand why some people consider Obama's identity as the Antichrist to be a matter of fact beyond any question whatsoever. So it's even sort of poignant when, for example, a woman tells McCain how terrified she is of Obama because he "is an Arab." She really believes Obama is an Arab and is terrified that the United States will be ruled by an Arab terrorist. It's easy for us - the "reality-based community" - to dismiss a lot of the Republican lies and smears about Obama as laughable and obviously untrue. Of course, that's what they are. But the mistake we're making is to trust that while some are laughing and others are keeping a straight face, everyone is in on the joke. That even if McCain supporters want to believe them or pretend that they're true, they must know they're lies. The chilling fact is that many people believe them wholeheartedly, sincerely. They are terrified to the core of their souls that Barack Obama, an Islamist terrorist, will be elected president. "Kill him!" "Off with his head!" they scream. This election is an all-American witch hunt. That's what we're up against.

WAKE UP AMERICA! Part 1

Predictably, McCain's people have McCain saying that Obama is using the financial crisis as a "political opportunity." McCain has seized every opportunity to accuse Obama of seizing opportunity lately - he's done it with Iraq, he's done it with race, he's done it with Obama's own success. Is McCain doing it for his health? To alert the American people that the man he's campaigning against is campaigning against him? Thanks, John. I have to say that these weakass, whiny, bitchy little complaints make McCain look awful - less than a man, frankly. It would all seem to bolster Obama's current strength and good chances, and McCain's desperation. But as we've seen in the past, don't underestimate the odious combination of utter unscrupulousness and desperation in politics, nor the susceptibility, shall we say, of voters to it.

WAKE UP AMERICA!

One reason to worry if you're an Obama supporter is that in spite of the substance of Republican philosophy, very much in evidence in McCain's history and platform - the predilection for war, the reluctance to govern for the common good, the reflexive fear-mongering and "values" pandering - Republicans are now trying to co-opt the Democrats' message. You hear a lot about "change" and "cleaning up Washington" from the McCain campaign. You've got to sort of admire the nerve. They're skimming the cream from the top of Obama's cup and dumping it into the cold bottom of theirs, with apparent impunity. Every grand and beautiful thing that Obama says - no problem, they'll just say it, too. I like to imagine that one of Karl Rove's lackeys, now working for McCain, had this revelation after weeks of "Curse you, Barack Obama! You're so good!" fist shaking. Eureka. Never mind that bringing change to Washington means changing eight years of grotesque mismanagement by George W. Bush and the (until very recently) Republican Congress. Like so many Machiavellian tactics, this one has an infantile simplicity at the heart of it; it's like children pathetically parroting each other's insults. "Say anything and the people will believe it" cynicism has evolved, or devolved, to "if the people believe what the others are saying, say that." Again, a saving grace is that it reeks of desperation upon the slightest examination. All we really need from undecideds this November is for them to think twice.

I was a bit surprised that Paul Krugman defended Obama for going after McCain's inability to remember how many houses he owns. It seems to me that if you don't want the Republicans to castigate you as an intellectual elitist (which Obama is), don't castigate your opponent for being a wealth elitist (which McCain most certainly is). A better point to make - and I'm not sure how to make it in this twisted political landscape - is that it's far better to be an intellectual elitist than a wealth elitist. If you went to Harvard Law, you're an elitist; if you can't remember how many houses you own, you are one too. But which kind is more likely to have the know-how, poise and breadth of diplomatic and other skills necessary to lead the country?

This notion that intellectuals are to be distrusted, this creepy idea that Nixon internalized and that Karl Rove and George W. Bush externalized and perfected, seems to haunt us still - even after its disgraceful consequences in our recent past. It's far more damaging than your run-of-the-mill campaign canard; in fact, it's fascist. It's Bolshevik. And Islamist, too. Totalitarian regimes, and the philosophies that gird them, have long repressed, demonized, ridiculed and even slaughtered the intellectual class. Why? Because intellectuals are the types of people who have the brains and insight to stop evil people, such as Republicans and terrorists, from doing whatever the fuck they want. It's always been easy for regimes to repress the intellectual class, because "regular" people - be they blue-collar Americans, the Russian proletariat or the Iraqi poor - are exceedingly susceptible to class resentment. This is a very easy button for propagandists to push, and once that's taken care of, it's not hard to make the problem "go away" - intellectuals tend not to be militaristic; they don't put up much of a fight. In Spain during the Inquisition, or Russia under Stalin, this meant you could round them up and kill them. In the United States today, you have to dispatch them more subtly - by insinuating that they're "soft on national security." No matter the method, it's the same crime.

Politics is now just a derivatives game. It's not about the moral character of the candidates, nor about their "vision," nor their experience or know-how, and least of all about the tedious "issues." The game is played at deep layers of derivation now: It's not even about the "spin" that a campaign can try to put on news events, polls or the assertions of its opponent (although this is an essential tactic). Nor is it even about the media's coverage of said spin. It's about the media's coverage of the media's coverage of the media's response to the public's response to the media's coverage of the spin.

There's been a lot of hand-wringing over whether modern American politics and policy have become "poll-driven." This is not the real worry. (In fact, we'd be a lot better off if the last eight years of executive policy had been determined in accord with public sentiment rather than in spite of it.) The trouble is, the media are poll-driven. They are engaged in a breathless dance with the public, as represented by lucrative demographic sectors, in which they cloyingly proffer "news" that might be most appetizing for the public to consume, whereupon the public more or less eats it up, the media poll the public to evaluate the success of the transaction (ever heard of ratings?), and try even harder next time to please. In other words, the media are doing the work of politicians.

The American people might be stupid, but they're no fools. They'll let someone butter their bread any old day. The media give the public what they want - entertainment, the illusion of authority, the illusion of knowledge, bells and whistles and (ironically) Britney Spears. Barack Obama's umpteen-point health care plan doesn't do that. It might buy you chemo when you're sick, but it won't try to tell you what there is to live for. All consumers aspire, strive and fantasize, and the media's business is to leverage that.

What's most worrisome is that Republicans are experts at this deeply cynical, immoral game. They don't give a fuck whether anything is "true" or not. This was not an aberration of the Bush campaign (no big surprise, as Bush's staff is now on board with McCain). It's ingrained in the cutthroat Republican culture now. They can't fight this campaign on the issues. They fucked us with Iraq, they fucked us on the environment, they've humiliated our country in the eyes of the world, they've dismissed the victims of disaster, they've tortured innumerable innocents, they've encouraged insane and profligate fiscal policies and economic practices, they've installed ass-kissing cronies at every level of government, they can't get their story straight on gays. So now we have: Obama voted against troop funding. Obama wouldn't visit the troops. Obama's playing the race card. Don't you think he's too thin?

It's encouraging that at least historically, McCain has not been completely down with this type of nonsense. (This may be the real reason the Republican "base" is so worried about him.) The pressure might get to be too much; he might have some cataclysmic and very public emotional breakdown over the evil that his minions are doing in his name. But I wouldn't count on it - the sight of the ultimate trophy seems to have rendered him docile and compliant. For that reason, too, Obama might have an advantage: Who's the fucking man in this duel right now? Not McCain. Still, we should worry.

I don't know how Republicans rationalize all this - or if they do. Maybe they see it all as an extension of individualism and free markets - get all you can ruthlessly, give the people what they want, the rest will sort itself out. The real trouble is, it works.

The bigger the lie, as somebody once said.

Strange picture accompanying an article about Obama in the Times today. Two supporters, one young, black and male; the other older, white, female, and wearing what appears to be a thorny crown of tricolor stars; claw at a cutout of the man. The caption says "Shelley Diment and Anthony Brown secured a Barack Obama cut-out," which I suppose means they're securing it to something, perhaps helping to keep a chaotic campaign scene tidy. But it seems like they may be securing it for themselves, covetously; Shelley's mouth is agape with adoration as she stretches to grip the silhouette by the neck and shoulder. Also, the cardboard seems bent and worn, like it might have just been retrieved from the trash; this, combined with the zany look of the woman and the zeal in her gestures, gives the scene an air of offbeat righteousness, like a freegan dumpster crawl.