Never Mind the Polls

The polls aren't necessarily right, said John the
Candidate, he who likes to campaign with Joe the
Plumber. No matter that even the Fox News poll
shows Obama winning, he says he's going to turn
this race around: "I'm a fighter!"

He's only echoing some of the news stories: It
ain't over til its over, and so forth. Some are
hinting, some simply stating, that many who say
they're voting for Barack Obama will chicken
out once they're in the privacy of the polling
booth. They're afraid they'll be called racist if
they tell the truth: They won't vote for a Black
man.

I'm sure this will be true in some cases. So
many questions about the accuracy of the polls
made me uneasy, too, until I read a comment on
one of the forums: ask the bookies! When it
concerns their pocketbooks, they'll try very hard
to get it right.

Although online gambling is illegal in the U.S., sites
based in other countries offer odds to anyone who
wants to bet, and the odds against a McCain win
are very long- 7 to 1 and up, with the numbers
reversed for Obama. A couple of the sites no longer
offer bets on Obama.

I wish I could be in Grant Park Tuesday night. I
was there 40 years ago when Chicago's finest
clubbed and gassed anti-Vietnam War protesters.
We were trying to get a message to the Democratic
Party hacks secluded further down the shoreline,
blind and deaf, nominating Hubert Humphrey, paving
the way for Nixon to win.

I don't think Obama will always hear us either, or
that he will end the war in Iraq as swiftly as he
indicated when he first began to run. But I voted
for him, and I wish I could be in Grant Park again,
this time with a more valid hope for peace.