Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Off the Track, at The Poles

If you’re a reasonable person – that is, anyone not carrying a clipboard and bothering people in Red Square – chances are quite high that you’re sick of the election season by now.

George W. Bush and John Kerry have been at odds with each other for months, but now it’s your turn. For readers not hailing from Las Vegas, you bet the second number to win the first.

We’ll start with the most important contest this year – Sunday’s football game between the Washington Redskins and the Green Bay Packers. Ever since they moved to Washington in 1932, the Redskins’ final home game before the presidential election has correctly predicted its outcome 17 times in a row.

If the Redskins win, the party in power gets four more years in the White House. If not, the voters throw the bums out. Odds: Sportsbook.com lists Washington as a 1.5 point underdog. Go ‘Skins!

But even Brett Favre looks to be incapable of sending Bush back to the locker room. His adopted state of Wisconsin, though, will join Iowa and New Mexico as the states Kerry fumbles from 2000 and the president picks up. Minnesota, Michigan and now Hawaii are blushing, but probably won’t turn red. Unfortunately, neither will Pennsylvania, even though Bush has now visited the state over 40 times. Odds: 50-1 that the Liberty Bell mysteriously disappears after the election in an act of Republican revenge.

Florida and Ohio will continue to make the right choice, but the parties’ squadrons of crack lawyers might have to re-route their flights from Miami to Cleveland. Odds: 1-2 that Ohio’s final vote tally will be closer than Florida’s.

Naturally, Bush’s electoral success will give Republican Senate candidates a big boost in their struggles against the Democrats. The battleground Senate states are all red ones, and most races have turned into a contest between a real Republican and a wannabe Republican. Odds: 1-1 that Dick Cheney will be able to drop the “F-bomb” in front of at least 53 Republican senators when the new Senate convenes in January.

Zooming in for a closer look at some of the individual races, I’ll start with the most important one – South Dakota’s. Incumbent Sen. Tom Daschle’s campaign has been in a long, self-destructive slide for several months now. Dancing a Washington two-step that makes both conservative South Dakotans and the liberals he leads angry, the minority leader has come under heavy fire from both sides of the aisle.

Clinging desperately to his seat, Daschle has spent $17 million on the race – through the end of September. That works out to about $50 for each of the 350,000 voters expected to turn out on Tuesday. Considering that his challenger John Thune is leading in the last two polls taken, it might have been more effective had Daschle just handed out the cash.

Thune has consistently trounced his opponent when the two have debated – Daschle appeared to be close to tears at the end of their appearance on “Meet the Press.” Odds: 4-1 that Daschle starts welling up again during his concession speech.

Over in Colorado, beer baron Pete Coors is locked into a very close battle with Attorney General Ken Salazar. Salazar has a small lead over Coors, drawing crucial support from fellow Hispanics and rural voters.

Coors’ campaign unfortunately hasn’t yet shot a silver bullet through Democrats’ hopes of picking up a seat here, thanks to gaffes like citing the nuclear dangers of “North Dakota” instead of North Korea.

My heart wants Pete Coors to win, but my head says Ken Salazar will. Odds: 5-1 that Coors gets drunk either way.

With those two gains as well as Georgia and Illinois negating each other, the Democrats should also win in Alaska. Meanwhile, the GOP will pick up both Carolinas as well as Florida, and hold on to Oklahoma.

Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) are also running in a second race, seeing which gaffe-prone candidate can say the stupidest thing during the campaign.

My pick to win that contest, though, is definitely fellow Senate hopeful Erskine Bowles (D-N.C.) – whenever he mentions his first name. Odds: 5-2 that Bowles was the favorite target of the playground bullies at his elementary school.

With just a couple of days left before Election Day, the Democrats are quickly running out of time to make themselves look even less appealing to the American voter.

After all, the real “odds” are the two people at the top of their ticket.

Eric Rodawig is a sophomore in the College and can be reached at rodawigthehoya.com. Thoughtcrime appears every other Friday.

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