Who's Got the 270?

When you realize that you have lost both Quincy Jones and Teri Garr, and that those are not the most newsworthy items on your screen and in your ears, it must be an election year...

Well, an election down there...

I am up here in the Great White North, sitting in my kitchen preparing marks, grades and lessons for my students this week. Daylight Saving Time has ended - or is that started? - so we are all a little rundown as we try to adapt to the early darkness (I quite like the early lightness - great for the run I needed this morning). Two early media heroes mentioned above are gone, and I am preparing for the weather to finally turn and not play out like the meteorological roller-coaster it has been for the last few weeks (cold weekends; humid midweek days).

Yes, I am trying to delay adding my honest thoughts about the election here.

In Canada, we are on the edge of making a choice about our own leaders, with one party clearly salivating over the chance to go to the voters (I have no such Pavlovian feeling). Even a recent schoolboard election in my adopted hometown got ugly. We are not always as polite as we seem.

And then, there's you.

Maybe I am being presumptuous in assuming that most of the readers who pay attention to 'The Swamp' are Americans. I have written very few overtly political pieces here. Currently, I am reading a biography of Nabokov's time in the United States, and he was certainly a writer who understood the limitations that could exist by limiting oneself to political writing. But this is a piece that I want to write.

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270 votes.

270 electoral votes will determine who becomes the next leader of the most powerful nation on Earth. In Canada, there is a lot of fear over what one particular candidate will do if elected (hint: it's all about the tariffs...and perhaps refugees). I also happen to live in a city where the other candidate once attended school, and former classmates are sharing happy memories of their relationship with the other candidate (hint: think law school bound, not court room witness).

I have a few temptations in front of me for tomorrow night. Democrats Abroad, a group of expatriates from that party now living, well, abroad, will have a get-together in a bar to follow the results. I could probably find a dozen cafés and other spaces with access to the incoming numbers. What I will not do is stay up far too late into the night to let my sleep be tainted by the rising numbers both blue and red.

In 2016, I did not know any better. I had my classes to teach at the college, and almost made it out of the office before a colleague posed the question I wanted to avoid:

He can't win, can he?

I will not share my response here. That still feels too personal and deserving of a very dark place in the back of my thoughts. I just remember being home with my tablet - had one of those back then - and gaping as I realized what happened and sleep refused to come.

And we are right back to it.

Only 270 votes away...

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Listen: I am as cynical as the next human. After years of teaching and seeing the same behaviour again and again, it is hard not to think that people cannot change. I am also a tired man who somehow thought that this little shot in the dark might make a difference. But this feels too different to ignore.

So, to the noises in our basement: just...vote. Either way, you will confirm certain thoughts and feelings I have always had about your great experiment.

On to the 5th.

And just for a laugh:

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You can find more poems, stories, and articles by Kendall Defoe on my Vocal profile. I complain, argue, provoke and create...just like everybody else.

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