Three days to go before The Election, I will have to devote this missive to everything Obama/Romney. Well history dictates what history dictates and this is my time for pronouncing on the prezzie election campaign. Everyone says Obama is going to win, but Romney is beginning to look and sound quite presidential. He may have been coaching in front of the wardrobe, sorry dressing room in his case, mirror, but he looks kinda White Housey. But Obama has a huge advantage. He’s the Commander-in-Chief, the Boss, the Guvnor, it’s so much easier to swan around the country as the President than it is as the would-be president, especially when there’s a helluva storm going on. Obama, and I’m not being cynical here, seized on Hurricane Sandy to grab all the headlines. He wore Commander-in-Chief jackets, hugged everyone he could lay his hands on and “directed” everyone to do everything. Actually it’s quite easy being president. All you have to do is gather all your cabinet ministers etc around you and after a lot of chat about this and that, you give a “directive”: Mr Panetta, go kill Osama bin Laden (OK Mr President), FEMA, (Federal Emergency Management Agency), do everything you can to help the victims of Hurricane Sandy (Yes Mr President), Secret Service, please stop being naughty in hotels before I arrive (Too late, Mr President), Michelle, where’s my dinner? (Get it yourself, Mr President!), this Benghazi affair, who’s to blame? (Not you Mr President), Am I going to win reelection? (Of course, Mr President, we’ve fixed Ohio good). Well done, guys, off you go, my directive is, get me and Sandy together as much as possible, I am the Commander-in-Chief after all (Yessir!). So there we are, it’s pretty well a done deal. Never mind how presidential Romney is, Obama is The One. Not quite The One he was in 2008, but just enough of a One to stay in the White House. I think. All depends on Ohio. Romney knows he has to win Ohio to get a chance. My prediction, Obama wins 294 Electoral College votes, Romney, 244. I can’t see anything happening in the next few days that would be so dramatic as to change the college votes which, as you know, is how the Prezzie gets picked. Some commentators have suggested there could be a tie, 269 each. Then what? Well, this is what: The House of Representatives gets to pick the president because the House has always been a democratically elected body, unlike the Senate which has only been an elected body since around 1912 I think. The House is Republican-controlled, so Romney gets to be Prezzie. The Senate is just about controlled by the Democrats, so they pick good old Joe Biden for Vice-Prezzie. Wow, that would be something, wouldn’t it? It won’t happen. Remember, Obama’s mates have fixed Ohio good.
I’ve gone on about the presidential directives, but there’s something else called an executive order which sounds really exciting and sort of dominating, big-time leadership stuff. A president can issue an executive order when everyone in Congress says no and he says, stuff it I say yes and here’s an executive order to put in your pipe and smoke. My grandfather on my mother’s side used to say that when he handed me a packet of Rollos. Well, I’m thinking that if Obama IS reelected and the House remains Republican and the Senate is wishy-washy with a tiny Democratic majority, the reinstated Commander-in-Chief is going to have play pretty fast and loose with his executive orders. Otherwise, he’ll get nothing done in the next four years, like he didn’t get that much done in the first four years. (Osama being the exception of course!) He promised to close Guantanamo but chickened out when Congress said, nooooo way, and the New York mayor said, you ain’t bringing those GTMO detainees over here in my backyard, and, by the way, there were no votes in closing the place which is nicely shut away from everyone’s minds in some place called Cuba (Doesn’t Castro live there? Least that’s what Jack Nicholson said in that film, right?) Obama could have issued a, yes you’ve guessed it, an executive order, but he didn’t , surprise surprise. So my second prediction is: if Obama wins reelection, GTMO will stay GTMO for another 15 years. At least, probably more. One thing’s for sure, Castro will die before the world’s most hated detention centre, sitting on leased Castro territory, gets dismantled. It’s all so weird! I wonder if it keeps Jack Nicholson up at night. Ha ha ha.
A warning! You may think the prezzie election is drawing to a close. But even as I write this there are serious people plotting and planning for the 2016 election. Chris Christie, for example, the gargantuan-sized Governor of New Jersey, and hardworking good guy post Hurricane Sandy, has begun a diet so that he can be the new-look slim Guvnor when the next presidential election campaign begins which is NOW! The US of A is obsessed with elections. They never stop. But, here’s a thing, your average hillybilly twanging his banjo in West Virginia like what he has always done, and your average polar bear watcher in Alaska, and your mind-your-own-business populace living in the deep south or in the middle where the buffaloes roam, most of whom (the people, not the buffaloes) have never been abroad (what’s abroad?), ain’t too cotton-pickin worried about anything that happens in Washington DC. So all that fuss about Obama or Romney and which bloke might look better, let alone serve better, in the Oval Office, don’t matter a ....Pass me my sawn-off, Chuck, will yer!! There's a squirrel on my broccoli!"
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