An election carol
11/03/08 | BY DEAN TREFTZ

The scene begins with our protagonist, Joe the Humbug/Columnist, trudging home on Election Day, when his phone rings. It’s his exuberant ex-colleague, Barry.

“Joe, come to the Deadwood, ’tis a splendid time, indeed,” Barry exclaims.

“Don’t you know what day this is?!” guffaws Joe. “Why, in a few hours they’ll be announcing the East Coast election results — your revelry is a farce today.”

Joe hangs up before he can hear Barry’s dejected “Dude …”

He continues on and soon is passing the Yacht Club, where he is approached by two destitute-looking hipsters.

“Beg pardon, but could you spare an hour this evening to see our band, governor?” pleads one. “Only $5 at the door, it is.”

“Bah, isn’t Starbucks hiring?” Joe mocks. “I have an election to watch, begone!”

He finally arrives at his cheerless room and immediately proceeds to update electoral votes.

Suddenly, his lights flip on, startling him, and the computer screen shakes. He attempts to ignore it, and leans in closer to the Drudge headline: MCCAIN UP IN EXIT POLLS 72-35!

Then, a picture of a turban-clad Barack Obama morphs into a new, familiar face.

“JOE!” booms his speakers. He knows that voice.

“E-evan?” Joe squeaks. Evan is a high-school friend who had disappeared into the land of advocacy groups.

“Yes; I have come to offer you a warning,” replies the vision of his old friend.

“What ever happened to you?” Joe stammers.

“I have been push polling, and if you do not change your ways, you’ll suffer the same fate,” the voice says. “Three specters will visit you this evening to show you your errors.”

“No! this can’t be, I don’t understand …”

Evan’s voice trails away, moaning “Do you support McCain’s proposal to reinvade Vietnam? …”

Just as silence settles, three knocks sound from Joe’s door. Opening it, he is face-to-face with Hillary Rodham Clinton.

“I am the Ghost of Elections Past — come with me,” she demands, and before Joe can speak, he finds himself in the middle of a roaring Kinnick Stadium student section. He recognizes the setting: it’s the 2006 Ohio State game — the biggest Hawkeye event in recent memory.

Nearby a group of his friends are raucously cheering — there is a space noticeably empty.

“Do you remember where you were?” Hillary cackles. They are whisked to a Davenport gymnasium, where a younger Joe is craning his neck to hear Obama recite platitudes.

“ ’Twas important, you don’t understand the gravity of candidates doing well in Iowa,” Joe declares. Hillary shoots him an icy look. “Oh, yeah …”

Joe snaps awake on his room. Before he can wipe the drool away, Joe Biden strides into the room.
“I am the Ghost of Elections Present,” he says and snaps his fingers.

Joe looks around to find that they are in the Deadwood. Barry and some friends are carousing at a table. Unheeded, TVs over the bar are scrolling election results.

“How can they just have fun, not knowing what’s going on?” he stammers.

“Ah, ’tis the spirit of Sanity that’s in them,” Biden replies. He snaps his fingers once more and Joe finds himself in a nearly deserted bar. One table has a scattering of graduation cards.

Standing next to Joe is a daunting, feminine figure. Dressed in a $50,000 Saks outfit, the specter is silent.

“Who could have such a pathetic graduation party as this,” he asks. The figure noiselessly points toward a corner booth with an eerie glow emanating from it. The sole occupant is himself hunched over a laptop scanning a Politico.com story about 2012.

“No!” he cries. “O cruel spirit, this cannot be — the election is over, the madness should stop.”

Joe begins to weep uncontrollably and falls into a nightmarish delirium.

He awakens on his couch with the morning light shining in and CNN on. He still doesn’t know who won, but the station cuts to commercial.

He looks at the screen. It’s not too late.

Joe quickly turns the TV off and dashes out the door into the most beautiful morning he has ever seen.

We cut to a depressingly unhungover Barry — without Joe, he went home at 11.

Joe bursts in the room, a pony keg under one arm, pork rinds under the other, and a smile on his face.

“It’s over: Merry Sanity Day,” Joe exclaims.

“ ’Tis a Sanity miracle! — God bless us, every one.”

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