The Greatest Show on Earth

As Andrea said to me last night, this election season is for a PhD in political science what Paris Fashion Week is to fashionistas the world over. This really is the greatest show on Earth! Andrea and I have been following this thing for 18 months at least, at first arguing for our respective candidates (me for Obama, Andrea for Hillary) and then more latterly hanging on every twist and turn of Obama's candidacy. I'm sorry comrades but this is better than the boxing day test and grand final day rolled into one! Andrea and I have the champagne waiting at home and I'm leaving work early to watch the race unfold on MSNBC and CNN. With most of the polls in the eastern states closing at 4pm pacific time, I expect that Anj and I will be able to get that champagne pouring early - maybe even 5-6pm local time. As I said last time, Obama will crack Virginia at around 7-8pm eastern (4-5 local) and it will be all over! I'm even starting to think that North Carolina might be in the bag for the first time since LBJ's barn-storming run through the South and South West in 1964. I remember at University thinking that all the truly great political struggles seemed like matters for history, and that all the truly remarkable races happened long ago (notwithstanding the 2000 race) - so to have such a close experience of history in the making is truly something to take in wonderment. As all the pundits are saying this is better than JFK versus Nixon - hell it might even be better than Abraham Lincoln vs Stephen A Douglas! As Sufjan Stevens once noted "Stephen A Douglas was the great debater, but Abraham Lincoln was the great emancipator". I wonder what they will say about Obama...one for the ages Amory Cormac Duff!