Friday, October 31, 2008

Absolute worst-case election scenarios. Let us purge.

Mark Morford

So then, here is what we'll do. In the large block of text below, I'll attempt to squeeze in all those nasty scenarios, all the worst-case jinxes and tricks and circumstances I've heard to date which have even the slightest chance in remote burning hell of coming to pass -- and maybe a few that don't, just in case.

I will include every insane curveball that could possibly go wrong next week, things that could somehow derail Obama's meteoric run and put Angry Grandpa and Caribou Barbie into office. I will trick the coding to put this text into relatively tiny type so as to make it all less apt to swarm your consciousness with Thoughts That Should Not Be.

One snag: The limitations of this format preclude me from surrounding this text with powerful glyphs and talismans so as to create a positive countercharge. That's where you come in. Before you continue, I encourage you to first take a deep breath, ground yourself, perhaps hold onto something meaningful and cosmically supercharged. Buddha necklace? Mala beads? Shot of dark rum and silver vibrator and a Pocket Bible dipped in dark chocolate and lavender body oil blessed by a pagan witch? Perfect.

Ready? Here we go ...

The Bradley effect strikes hard. An NYT poll found a third of all voters personally know someone who won't vote for Obama solely because he's black. Upshot: America's latent racism rears up like Cthulhu and millions vote for Angry Grandpa out of sheer bigotry and fear of gangsta rap. Obama is assassinated. Obama is struck by a meteor. Obama is killed by giant knobby tire accidentally flung from nearby monster truck rally in West Virginia. McCain pulls Osama bin Laden out the rec room of one of his seven homes and shoots him dead on live TV, right before Sarah Palin lifts her $800 Valentino pencil skirt to reveal a shocking birthmark on her right ass cheek that looks exactly like Jesus shooting a moose from a snowmobile. The Undecideds all go for McCain because, when in doubt, vote for the guy who wants to bomb all the scary turban-wearing people. McCain wins because record numbers of blissed-out young liberals think Obama's a lock, and therefore forget to vote because they're too busy texting their champagne preferences to their Twitter feeds via iPhone. The GOP cooks the voter rolls in Missouri. The GOP cooks the voter rolls in Indiana. The GOP cooks the voter rolls in a half-dozen other battleground states and steals Florida by promising free pudding and Lipitor to every retiree who votes for McPalin. The U.S. economy rebounds in 24 hours and people decide they have no more need for hope and progress because there's a ginormous sale at Old Navy. China invades. Russia invades. India invades, but mostly to offer tech support. Bush declares martial law, but misunderstands and calls it "partial law" and hence everyone starts raping and pillaging, but only a little. Joe the Plumber is revealed to be the father of Bristol Palin's baby and Bristol Palin. Rupert Murdoch buys all media and threatens that unless the nation votes for McCain, he's killing off everything except Fox News and putting Bill O'Reilly in charge of the New York Times. John McCain pulls one final Hail Mary stunt, dumps Sarah Palin and brings on Angelina Jolie, then quickly dumps Jolie and brings on David Beckham, dumps Becks and brings on the Dark Lord Sauron, safe in the knowledge that King Aragorn is off in elf-land nailing Liv Tyler. Finally, Reverse Rapture strikes: All Christians and conservatives are crammed into a giant vacant Wal-Mart in Salt Lake City while all hippies and liberals are whisked straight to heaven, which turns out to be exactly like Hawaii, but with better Mexican food.

There now. Don't you feel better? All phantom demons purged? Excellent. Have fun voting. Should be one hell of a party.

Oh yeah, that helped. I feel much better now. Not good enough yet. Wednesday morning will tell the tale.

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