November 5, 2012--In From the Dark

Power was restored to lower Manhattan early Saturday morning. Not in any way suffering or inconvenienced as were and are so many millions, nonetheless, to we jaded-ones, having to scavenge for bottled water and edibles and needing to walk down and up 14 or more floors since elevators were stalled was inconvenience enough.

But not having access to the Internet and other essentials such as the New York Times, Politico, CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, "Morning Joe," the Daily Kos, and most important, to Nate Silver's number crunching, for days we were scarcely unaware that there was an election underway.

Forgotten were tossup states such as Florida, though during a hurricane one thinks about Andrew and other Sunshine State disasters, and Ohio, except to wonder if Sandy somehow reached there as well.

As someone who has been addictively following the 2012 election since 2008--from the day after Obama was elected--you might image, cut off as I have been, that I would have undergone withdrawal symptoms or electoral DTs.

Actually, it is fascinating how all this election business quickly becomes irrelevant when worrying if we have enough canned tuna fish or sufficient water stashed in our bathtub to manually flush the toilet. The need for basics reasserts itself and trumps everything else.

But happily, we at least have begun to emerge from our apolitical cocoon, though I haven't as yet looked at any newspapers or Websites.

In this state of isolation, perhaps because of it, I can now confidently report what will happen on Tuesday--

The popular vote will be among the closest in history, with Romney pulling an Al Gore.

Which suggests, that though Romney will get so many more votes in his red states (Mississippi and Alabama, and Wyoming and the like) than Obama will in the blue states, he will win the popular vote but will be defeated in the anachronistic Electoral College.

Obama will win Ohio, Ohio, Ohio plus Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and maybe even Florida (voter suppression efforts there will backfire).

The Republicans will retain control of the House of Representatives (though losing 10-15 seats) and the Democrats will keep control of the Senate (thought losing one or two seats).

New Jersey governor Chris Christie, who has developed a man-crush on Obama, will vote secretly for Obama in his effort to see Romney defeated, which in turn will open the path for him to the GOP nomination four years hence. Ask yourself--who at that time will Republicans prefer--Christie, Jeb Bush, or Rand Paul?

Christie will win that nomination, Hillary will win the Democratic nomination, and she will go on to be elected in 2016.

Hillary will then run for reelection in 2020 and defeat the Marco Rubio-Sarah Palin GOP ticket.

And in 2024, twelve years from now, Andrew Cuomo will run against Mitt Romney, who, though he will be 77, will still look well preserved and still be proclaiming his love for trees, American cars, and cheesy grits.

Romney will win in a landslide because by then Democrats will have controlled the White House for 16 years and it will be time for a change; and, because of a Roberts-Scalia-Alito-Thomas-Kennedy Supreme Court ruling, the 47 percent will no longer have the constitutional right to vote. Also, voters will confuse Andrew Cuomo with his father Mario, who will be in his 90s, and Andrew thus will be perceived as too old to be commander in chief.

So you can see, like Rip Van Winkle, time without electricity can be very illuminating.