\n| \n We can’t believe we actually did it! We cast our
\n precious vote for George W. Bush, the incarnation of political evil,
\n the antithesis of everything we believe in. What could have possibly
\n possessed us? Will we burn in hell for this?<\/p>\n It was surprisingly easy, after the agonizing moral
\n gymnastics leading up to the election. We simply marched over to the
\n Armenian Church across the street, a mere fifty strides from our front
\n door, and declared our name. No ID required, but the poll workers did
\n make us remove our "%#*&! BUSH" button. We took the proffered ballot
\n into the tiny booth and did the deed.<\/p>\n Here in Massachusetts we are given cheap felt-tipped
\n pens and instructed to connect the dots between the candidates name
\n and an arrowhead to its right. We voted for a number of lackluster Democrats,
\n but wrote in the Dowbrigade for a number of single-candidate races (we
\n have a instinctual distrust of any election with only one candidate)
\n and our old college roommate Britt for Sheriff (a long story). And then,
\n finally, unable to delay any longer, we connected the dots for old George.
\n As we did, we whispered a little prayer: "Goodbye, George."<\/p>\n Our reasoning is simple, if twisted. It seems the Dowbrigade
\n has a deeply ingrained talent for picking losers in US Presidential races. Six
\n times running, going back to Reagan over Carter, we have managed to vote
\n for the loser. This is no time to change our technique. <\/p>\n 25 years of losing is a grand tradition and a heavy
\n burden to bring to a race as close as this. That’s a lot of negative
\n Mojo built up over six election cycles and consistently idealistic selection.
\n Perhaps, if we can’t change our luck, we can change our strategic thinking.
\n This time we will cast our vote with cold, calculating Karma in mind.<\/p>\n It would be a shame not to use all that negative Mojo
\n for something constructive. So we are bequeathing it to George W. He
\n doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of winning Massachusett’s 10
\n electoral votes, even with our vote and an extra million others. If our
\n vote, and
\n the six-cycle charge of loser’s luck that goes with it, can produce one
\n iota of Karmic harm to Bush’s chances, it’s worth the gallant gesture.<\/p>\n Like all truly gallant gestures this one comes with a price.
\n The first people we told of our plan, the tech twins in the computer closet at work,
\n told us we’d better pray Bush didn’t win, because if he did they would string
\n us up with coaxial cable. We hope they mean win Massachusetts. When we
\n told our dear Mom, she almost hung up the phone on the spot. We
\n could tell she wanted to, but it would have been unprecedented, and rude.
\n Still, she threatened to disown and disinherit us if this doesn’t
\n work. These tough karmic calls inevitably involve a heavy price for betting
\n wrong.<\/p>\n If it DOES work, and we are karmically responsible for
\n Bush’s defeat, we expect a Cabinet Position (Education? Homeland Security?),
\n or at least a juicy, top-shelf, Haliburton-type contract to teach proper English
\n to everybody in Iraq, and we don’t mean just the G.I.s. <\/p>\n So here we sit,
\n glued to the tube and feeling personally responsible for the results
\n of the election. The games mean so much more when you’ve got something
\n real riding on the outcome.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We can’t believe we actually did it! We cast our precious vote for George W. Bush, the incarnation of political evil, the antithesis of everything we believe in. What could have possibly possessed us? Will we burn in hell for … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":299,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[96],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/299"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2688"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2688\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} |