Or how Barack Obama can still lose the election?
By Zafar Anjum
04 Nov 2008
Nothing is what it seems, the cynic would rant.
If you want the real news, don’t read the newspapers, he would say.
But most often than not, events prove the cynic right.
Take this year’s US Presidential elections, for instance.
For the first time in America’s history, a man of colour is tipped to occupy the most powerful political post in the world.
The hope-inspiring Barack Obama’s rise through the democratic ranks has become a stuff of folk lore.
Obama's The Audacity of Hope has become a bestseller. He has become a hero for his message of peace and change for millions of people around the world. Even before there was the Obama Girl, he inspired the writers of prime time TV. The protagonist, Matthew Santos, in the final season of the much-loved political TV series, The West Wing was based on his character. “I drew inspiration from [Obama] in drawing this character,” West Wing writer and producer Eli Attie told the Guardian.
So far so good.
But how does the reality look like when the moment of reckoning has arrived?
The historic elections are only hours away from now (at the time of writing). The good news is that all polls indicate that Barak Obama is set to beat his rival John McCain at the hustings.
However, doubts persist.
“Maybe the polls are wrong, and John McCain is about to pull off the biggest election upset in American history”—were the opening lines in the latest column by Paul Krugman, the New York Times columnist and this year’s Nobel Prize winner for Economics.
Voting fraud
Though there are no reported last minute surges in support of McCain, some are pointing to voting fraud. Voting fraud will dash Obama’s hopes, they say.
Writing in his diary in The Outlook magazine, BBC journalist Daniel Lak says: “Many Americans say there’s another logic-defying reason Obama might lose: ballot-rigging. Yes, my friends, it does happen.”
Shocking, isn’t it?
But not for those who have been following the US elections.
Lak further adds: “In 1960, John F. Kennedy beat Richard Nixon by several hundred thousand votes, most delivered by the crooked Democratic Party machine in Chicago. And many Democrats still believe that George W. Bush’s Republican Party stole the last two elections. The first was in 2000 with purges of black people—reliable Democrats—from voting lists in Florida. Then four years later, inexplicable voting machine glitches in the key state of Ohio largely seemed to hit Democrat-leaning students and, er blacks yet again.”
All this reminds me of the election scenario when Al Gore was supposed to trounce George W. Bush eight years ago. We all know what happened then. “I was the next President of the United States of America”—became Al Gore’s punch line for many years.
This year does not seem to be different, at least in terms of reports of glitches in e-voting machines.
According a report by IDG's Grant Gross, a handful of early voters in West Virginia have complained that electronic voting machines there switched their votes. In another report, IDG's Robert McMillan emphasizes that despite reforms and abandonment of faulty e-voting systems, there is still room for plenty of e-voting glitches this year in a race that could have the highest turnout in 100 years. When the lead between the two candidates is merely of 7 percentage points (50 per cent to 43 per cent), with 10 per cent of the voters still undecided, the results can be anybody’s guess.
This sounds very much like what happened in the Barry Levinson movie, Man of the Year (2006). For those who have not seen it, here is the one-line plot, courtesy www.imdb.com: A comedian (Robin Williams) who hosts a news satire program decides to run for president, and a computerized voting machine malfunction gets him elected.
Compared to today’s reality, the difference is that the comedian who wrongly won was the man who wanted to bring change in the Washington politics.
Even though my cynical mind says that McCain will win this election, this time, I would be glad if I am proven wrong.
Zafar Anjum is the online editor of MIS Asia portal.
