There was a funny sense of Déjà vu at the bar last night. We’d shut off work stations at 5.30pm, forcing ourselves to let go of the tenuous hope we’d carried for the last few months. My good friend, Rich, put his hand on my shoulder, made me stop refreshing CNN, and go have a beer.
The usual suspects were there. My excellent, well-informed, and hilarious friends with whom I have happily shared every morsel of information about this election and the Australian election over the last year.
“What are we going to talk about now?”, one joked.
“Clinton/Obama 2008!” I replied, half serious as I stared into my empty glass.
A friend’s girlfriend kindly put her hand on my shoulder and commented that she felt like she kept seeing me in my weakest moments. I smiled and said that, in the last year anyway, that was probably true. The same group who were gathered around a map of the US scribbling on states, trying to figure if there was any chance of a draw, were gathered in a smoky bar in Brunswick to watch England crash out of the European Championships earlier this year. Most of us sat in another bar on October 9th too disappointed by Howard’s re-election to speak.
I know that comparing the result of a football match with what happened on October 9th and yesterday is a little glib but I seem to have the same sort of sinking feeling to these events. Maybe it explains why I care the way I do.
I support England’s stupid football team. I support Mark Latham and the ALP. I support John Kerry and the Democrats. I wanted them all to win. I put an equal amount of time into researching everything about them and trying to work out scenarios where could have won. I invest. A colleague joked yesterday, when I jumped up form my desk and did a pre-emptive victory dance at seeing the Ohio Exit Polls (STUPID!!), “It’s just a game”.
I immediately turned to him, like the smart arse I am, and paraphrased the late, great, Liverpool manager, Bill Shankly: Politics isn’t a matter of life and death. It is much, much more important than that.
It was strange to come into work this morning and not immediately turn to Electoral Vote.
Four more years? My only comfort is that Bush and Cheney will have to clean up the giant mess that they have made.
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