There will be sighs of relief when this carryon, started over a year ago, designed to cater for the days before the telegraph or trans continental train, rumbles to its conclusion.
Like in a bad western the two candidates are today clawing their way across the dusty open ground to see who can reach the one gun first. By tomorrow morning we will know. But then the drama is still not quite over. Unlike in UK elections where it's furniture vans within the hour, the same day walk or drive of shame, in the US there are another couple of months before the bands play, the winner gets the key to the nice house and the loser rides out of the picture.- at least for the moment.
The result? This is the year of electoral upsets. It began in the UK with Boaty McBoatface. Never intended to be a winner, Boaty was. The voters just said "We are fed up with establishment names. We'll vote for a nonsense". Dave should have noted it ,shivered and done something about it but it's unlikely he even read the tea leaves, and linked the vote what was going to happen next in the great Brexit bakeoff. Perhaps he looked in Earl Grey not the more mystifying builders pot. Even on Referendum night itself "Remain" was expected to win. Then in just four hours from midnight to 4am a narrow 52/40 victory for "Leave" revealed itself . By breakfast time Dave was outside on the street abdicating. Nobody has yet tried to calculate how much of the vote was a protest "We don't like the establishment and it's not working for us" vote largely from poorer whites but some of it was and that rather than the issue may have won the day.
Tonight the assumptions are that Hillary Clinton, despite what looked like an intended FBI killer intervention and too late withdrawal ,will just make it thanks partly to winning the early votes, especially the southern Hispanics. But then, but then... the Trump campaign, like Brexit, has been resonating with the poorer white voters who feel left behind by the whole US political machine and establishment. If that means these people come out today and others stay at home, Wednesday could see a triumphant Trump, wall- building spade in one hand and the nuclear trigger in the other.
It's not over until it's over.
Like in a bad western the two candidates are today clawing their way across the dusty open ground to see who can reach the one gun first. By tomorrow morning we will know. But then the drama is still not quite over. Unlike in UK elections where it's furniture vans within the hour, the same day walk or drive of shame, in the US there are another couple of months before the bands play, the winner gets the key to the nice house and the loser rides out of the picture.- at least for the moment.
The result? This is the year of electoral upsets. It began in the UK with Boaty McBoatface. Never intended to be a winner, Boaty was. The voters just said "We are fed up with establishment names. We'll vote for a nonsense". Dave should have noted it ,shivered and done something about it but it's unlikely he even read the tea leaves, and linked the vote what was going to happen next in the great Brexit bakeoff. Perhaps he looked in Earl Grey not the more mystifying builders pot. Even on Referendum night itself "Remain" was expected to win. Then in just four hours from midnight to 4am a narrow 52/40 victory for "Leave" revealed itself . By breakfast time Dave was outside on the street abdicating. Nobody has yet tried to calculate how much of the vote was a protest "We don't like the establishment and it's not working for us" vote largely from poorer whites but some of it was and that rather than the issue may have won the day.
Tonight the assumptions are that Hillary Clinton, despite what looked like an intended FBI killer intervention and too late withdrawal ,will just make it thanks partly to winning the early votes, especially the southern Hispanics. But then, but then... the Trump campaign, like Brexit, has been resonating with the poorer white voters who feel left behind by the whole US political machine and establishment. If that means these people come out today and others stay at home, Wednesday could see a triumphant Trump, wall- building spade in one hand and the nuclear trigger in the other.
It's not over until it's over.
