Elections, elections...

I know everybody and his brother is blogging something on the upcoming US elections. Why, the BBC alone has a team of bloggers chugging away on the topic! And them's furriners! Something comes to mind with Shakespeare, monkeys, typewriters and infinite time...

Still, I wanted to make at least one statement. Perhaps it will not mean much, perhaps it will look foolish, perhaps prescient. However, I wanted to use the opportunity, Election Day -1, to state that I have a feeling that 2006 will not be the political sea-change that the media would like to make it out to be. I have a respect for the genius of Karl Rove, and I have a strong feeling that the Republicans will do much better tomorrow that one might think. Will this mean that they will retain all their political spoils? Doubtful. However, I can see them making it as difficult as possible for any races to be settled against their interests. I can even see them keeping control of the House, or even better/worse (depending on your political persuasion) giving up control, but only enough to make the Democrats look more incompetent.

However, ultimately nothing will change, at least not this time. I must admit, that one reason I grow tired of politics (as opposed to policy) is because one senses that it is all the more a hewing to the status quo, an inadventurousness and a true fear for change. I am sure politicians have always been so, but then that was why there were statesmen above them. Now, however, even such allegedly venerable offices as senator and president are mere political hacks in a 24/7 popularity contest, and the closest thing to statesmen (like, believe it or not, Dick Cheney), are shadowy figures. To paraphrase Churchill, politics has gone to the modest men who have much to be modest about. (This was spoken about Clement Attlee, and the statement itself is a misleading political quip, as history showed Attlee to be a better statesman than his contemporary political rival allowed).

It is interesting in other respects how so little changes in politics. Nicaragua went to the ballot boxes yesterday to vote for a new president, and the likely winner (thanks to some jimmying of electoral laws) looks to be former Sandinista Daniel Ortega. The State Department has engaged in some undue meddling, stating their disproval over the possible presidency of this former foe. However, Mr. Ortega seems to have gone far from Marxism (what with there being no Soviet Union and a geriatric regime in Cuba these days) and is more of a populist than a threat to strategic balances of power. His very existence and political survival, in my mind, is a perfect example of how conflicts arise as a result of rivalries between Great Powers than from anything else, democracy, the UN, or whatever. There will be no new contra war, I think we can rest assured, although the US risks looking a little foolish not letting go of Cold War ghosts. And I will not even begin on Oliver North's campaigning against Ortega...perhaps a little jealous that this former foe of his has found a better career than part-time conservative politician and commentator on Fox News?


So, go vote (the city Somerville reneged on their promise to mail me directions to the nearest polling station!), and then get on with your life, because things will be as they have pretty much always been. It's amazing how much money gets spent on these campaigns, when ultimately very little changes.