Hunting The Muse

Election Prediction

Mathew Gross: Prediction Time-- a Challenge to My Fellow Bloggers

We're all going on record to predict the election. Here's mine.

Bush gets Florida, Ohio, Missouri, New Mexico. Kerry gets Arkansas. Kerry gets CO just barely, but the vote splitting measure is close in CO. Kerry wins all of Maine, but one congressional district is being recounted. If the CO measure passes, then it's 270-268 Kerry if he retains Maine, 269-269 otherwise.

The vote splitting measure fails, and Kerry gets all nine CO EVs and a presidential win - but wait! The GOP is demanding a recount on the CO measure! The Kerry campaign begins to challenge the recount, as well as the constitutionality of the measure, pointing out that it is the CO legislature, not the people, who determine how the EVs are awarded. All of a sudden, boxes and boxes of uncounted ballots toward the measure start to appear. Mixed in to the boxes are several absentee ballots for residents of... Maine! The boxes are discovered in a Boulder dormitory down the hall from the president of the Young Republicans club. The room is that of a young, meek, nerdy political science major, a Big Brother to disadvantageed youths writing his major project on Vaclav Havel and Archishop Desmond Tutu. The room is discovered by dozens of Republican operatives pounding on his door, and the boxes are covered by hundreds of "Defend America, Defeat Bush!" bumper stickers, an assault weapon, and a piece of DNC stationary with nothing but a hurriedly scrawled picture of a gun pointed at the White House, and an underlined proclamation that "DemocRATS will RULEZ!!"

Meanwhile, a certain West Virginia Republican elector is in the news again, after saying earlier in the year that he might not cast his electoral vote for Bush anyway. Would it be for Kerry? that would make it 270-268 Kerry...

The argument that the "Havel coverup ballots" must be counted is kicked around the courts, until it reaches the Supreme Court on the four year anniversary of the Bush v Gore argument. Later, on a day forever to be known as Black Tuesday,

• The Supreme Court rules 5-4 that the "Havel coverup ballots" must be counted in the name of democracy, including the Maine absentee ballots. This leads to Maine's remaining EV being awarded to Bush, and to the CO vote-splitting measure passing.
• The Supreme Court releases a 5-4 decision that upholds the constitutionality of the Colorado measure, congratulating the citizens of Colorado for a wonderful experiment in citizen democracy. A footnote in the decision encourages California to pass a similar measure, while conversationally dropping the fact that some states, like Texas, would probably never see a similar law due to the intricacies of their referendum processes.
• Stevens, Breyer, and Ginsburg hold a press conference to give a blistering dissent of the decision. It is read aloud. Stevens' dissent ends with the simple words: "This is a coup. I dissent. So should the people."
• The WV elector is found dead in his hotel room. It appears to be an accidental suicide, judging from the humiliating position of the body, but upon further digging, a DNC business card and a dead rat are found nailed to the wall. The media immediately proclaims it as a frame-up perpetrated by the Democrats in order to cast doubt on the Republicans.

The 269 tie goes to the House, where Tom Delay, bizarrely present after his defeat was overturned by the Texas Supreme Court, is seen stroking a gavel, muttering "My preciousssss..." A million citizens are violently protesting outside the House of Representatives while the vote is held. The National Guard is called in by the Bush Administration in a statement where he stresses the need to protect democracy...

Posted by Curt at October 8, 2004 02:24 PM