11.01.04 - 6:30 p.m.

I am obsessed with the election.

I can't understand people who aren't obsessed with the election.

...and non-voters infuriate me. I cannot be civil or civilized to a fair portion of my acquaintances, neighbors, and friends. It's some sort of illness, something infectious, a virus that takes over my brain cells and starts remaking them in its image: not merely partisanship (I voted - a week and a day ago - for both Democratic and Republican candidates) but a sort of cultural war, scorched earth strategy. Class warfare.

I remember the Simpsons episode when Bart thought Maude Flanders had been murdered by Ned. It turned out she had been away at Bible camp. She explained:

"I was learning to be more judgmental."

I cannot begin to express myself at the moment. Everything I'm thinking, everything I'm feeling, the endless upward ratcheting of anxiety: it all dissolves back into a number of discouraging and all too familiar clich�s. Two Americas. Class warfare - social or economic - the divide between the south and the north, the coasts and the middle, the vast sweeping plains of the western states, the way patriotism is coopted into something ugly and nationalist. I have no idea what I just said.

I am an idealistic pragmatist. I have great hopes for this country and this world, but right now the divide feels so angry, so infected: when will the situation come to a head? When will the boil burst? Or can we lance it? -- struggle, upheaval, change must always affect people like this, and every generation needs something against which to rebel. There will always be children with neglectful parents. There will always be jealousy and selfishness and rage. There will always be judgmental fundamentalists and people for whom left-wing activism can never be left-wing enough. I will always feel a frisson of fear when I spot a police car on the highway and glance down - reflexively - at the speedometer to see if I'm speeding. I rarely do - but the one time I speed will - of course - be the one time I'm caught.

My inner dialogue has become a motormouth. I am constantly vetting new ideas and lessons, aphorisms, power-points against some inner critic. Not surprisingly, I usually agree with myself - until it is time to organize the flotsam of thought into a coherent statement. What is it I want? I want an organized and active left-wing in this country. There is no doubt about that in myh mind. I want a left-wing that does not rely on identity politics or right-baiting, a left-wing that is as viable in Huntington, WV as it is in Hollywood, California, one center around something more than dislike or protest - and more than the old "class warfare" politics of economic disenfranchisement. It's a shame that we didn't think of Bush's meme - an "ownership society" - first, but maybe it's still cooptable. After all, I don't hear him talking about ownership anymore, I hear the usual - gaybaiting has replaced, I think, race baiting as the most overt GOP tactic, but there's no question that the Democratic lost the south due to racial politics, and the GOP has kept the south in its deep back pocket thanks to...

...class warfare, but not the good old "people versus the powerful" theme that Shrum et al have promoted, regularly, under various guises over the years. [It doesn't work, and hasn't worked for two decades, perhaps more. The GOP is now the party of populism. W is a populist president. I think that the living, breathing idea of the liberal elite has thoroughly pervaded our national consciousness, and the party's populism smells sickeningly inauthentic when promoted by the driven, accomplished, focused, smart children of driven, accomplished, focused, smart people, by politicians who have half inherited, half earned their place on the national stage, by people who attended Harvard and Yale, who have not ever cheered on their alma mater to some sort of important sports victory. Think about it: there's a certain tyranny of the self-important and self-involved in a meritocracy, which leads to...

...I can't be a political writer. I can't take a stand. I straddle far too many worlds, and fit into absolutely none of them.

It's 6:15. I have finally ferreted out and submitted as much of last month's time as I can. I think there are at least three major projects I've somehow allowed to slip through my fingers - timewise, rather than project-wise, but there's nothing I can do now. I NEVER EVER remember to submit time later when I don't have a file number while I'm working on something. Or, hardly ever. At least I met my budget.

Time to go make last minute calls. Oh, and my election predictions:

Maine: Kerry
New Hampshire: Kerry
Pennsylvania: Kerry
Michigan: Kerry
Ohio: Kerry
West Virginia: Bush
Minnesota: Kerry
Wisconsin: Kerry
Iowa: Bush
Missouri: Bush
Arkansas: Bush
Washington: Kerry
Oregon: Kerry
Nevada: Bush
New Mexico: Bush
Colorado: Bush
Arizona: Bush
Hawaii: Kerry
Florida: Kerry

Voter turnout: 60.1%

Bonus: Senate: 50/50 tie requiring power-sharing agreement. Pete Sessions loses his seat in the house, Bunning retains his seat in the Senate but quietly resigns within a year w/some subtle but significant health problem. We're still stuck in Iraq in a year, with no end in sight, and the lawsuits regarding the ballots in the closest states - Ohio, Wisconsin, and Flordia - threaten to impinge on Kerry's inaugeration. Colin Powell and Rudy Giuliani both start immediately running for GOP nomination in 2008, and McCain reveals that he secretly voted for Kerry, setting up his blazing run for the White House on a McCain/Powell ticket in 2008. Iraq is still an issue in 2008 and Kerry, like Bush, is a one-term president. McCain/Powell win 2008 and 2012. The election in 2016 is Barack Obama versus Colin Powell - resulting in our first black president no matter who wins.