AddieStan

AMTRAK 79, BALTIMORE, MD.--"Remember, they're not done counting in Ohio," said the beautiful young man who drove your blogstress to the Trenton train station this morning in the hotel van. "Keep hope alive," he added, as he handed your Webwench her bags. Your cybertrix has begun to wonder whether hope isn't a pursuit best suited to the young. While she refuses to embrace cynicism (though she has been guilty of periodic dalliances with that cad), a sense of weary sadness so fills her being that she finds it difficult to feel much of anything else. Your écrivaine would feel less depleted, she thinks, had the president ever given her reason to believe that he had the humility to read the fact of the evenly-divided electorate as something less than a mandate for his earth-raping, pocket-picking, Constitution-mangling, innocent-killing agenda. And his deployment of the politics of trauma in his own cause--his blatant exploitation of the 9-11 horror...

From our dear friend, the Composer, comes this: Well, I feel the wind knocked out of me: it feels like an onrushing train--coming toward me. However wonderful it is to know so many people voted in this election, the results are horrifying....If I were a theist, I'd pray for interesting and effective art.

TRENTON, N.J.--Not having slept for days, and only fitfully for weeks, your cybertrix is calling it a night, in order to actually make an 8:00 a.m. train back to our nation's capital. Hang in there, America. We'll figure it out.

"We have waited four years for this victory, and we can wait one more night," Edwards told a weary crowd in Boston. Rather and Ed Bradley say it could be as many as 10 days before Ohio is decided, since the election's outcome may be decided by the provisional ballots delivered by the African-American wards of Cleveland and Cincinnatti. Why so many provisionals there? Republican challengers at polling places, it seems. Looks like Iowa is another cliffhanger.

TRENTON, N.J.--Josh Marshall is keeping watch on what he calls Republican delaying tactics in Ohio, a story he says the media are ignoring (like so many others). Read Marshall on Ohio Your blogstress was told by a poll-watcher on the ground in Columbus (on what is now yesterday) that the president's inpromptu visit to his Columbus headquarters at noon on Election Day served to shut down a number of streets in a Democratic ward. Because the Columbus drop-in was billed, not as a campaign appearance, but as a visit to thank his Columbus volunteers, the media apparently refrained from noting Mr. Bush's violation of a long-standing tradition in presidential politics: no politicking on Election Day after the polls open. But what do you want from a guy who thinks the Constitution was made to be broken?

TRENTON, N.J.--Guess they're not loving that U.S.A. Patriot Act up there in libertarian heaven, otherwise known as New Hampshire. Rather points out that New Hampshire is the first state tonight to go a different way than it did in 2000, and it went for Kerry. Nonetheless, it looks as though a Kerry victory is becoming ever less likely.

TRENTON, N.J.--Well, the Senate may remain in Republican hands, the House definitely will, and the White House is lookin' mighty red at this late hour. In this distressing environment comes this bit of good news: Coors is goin' down in his bid to become a U.S. senator from Colorado. It's hard to get much more hypocritical than the Coorses of Golden, Colorado. The brewing dynasty provided more than seed money for the religious right (they basically bankrolled Paul Weyrich and his Heritage Foundation) and continue to embrace that platform, all the while courting gay male patrons by sponsoring gay festivals (leather parties and the like) that feature some activities which, in the the lock-down minds of morally superior righties, should ensure the imprisonment of the participants, if not their death by stoning.

The smoldering Gang of One responds to your blogstress's post labeled Apocalypse : Ché was a medical school student; Castro, a minor league baseball player; Pancho Villa (née Doroteo Arango), a cattle rustler; Emiliano Zapata, a humble farmer; Mao was a peasant; Lenin was a lawyer. Hitler was the only "revolutionary" who considered himself an artist. Well, probably not the only one (your cybertrix comes to mind)--just the only one among the smoldering Gang's selected group. Intriguing nonetheless.

TRENTON, N.J.--Looks like Ohio will be decided by the county in which Cleveland resides, a single Midwestern county could determine the outcome of the election if the verdict goes negative for Kerry. They all say that he can't win without Ohio, and they're still counting votes in Cuyahoga County--and they figure to be doing so until about 4:00 a.m. From an election-night party in Washington, D.C., the Internationalist informed your cybertrix hours ago (10:55, to be exact) that it would be all about Ohio. About the chance of the election being decided before daybreak, Rather said to Shieffer: "I used to say that if a frog had side pockets, he'd carry a handgun." Your blogstress is not sure what that means, but you gotta hand it to these old guys girding their loins for an all-nighter while your more youthful Webwench finds herself fading.

TRENTON, N.J.--Dan Rather to Kerry Communications Director Joe Lockhart: "I know you'd rather walk through a furnace in a gasoline suit than lose Ohio." This is why Rather is still worth watching on election nights. The forced folkisms are at least amusing, giving the viewer a reason to suffer through all the mathematical electoral-vote scenarios run across the television screen. Your blogstress's favorite harkens back to 1992, when Rather referred to Ross Perot as someone regarded by some folks as being "half a bubble off plumb."

TRENTON, N.J.--Here at Kerry's New Jersey election-night headquarters (Marriott Trenton Yard), the energy is pretty low. True, the state was called early in the evening, after weeks of yo-yo polls that yielded an exhausted sense of relief among the troops once the dead-heat surveys were handily defied. As your cyberscribe blogs, a hard-core group surrounds a large-screen TV in a hotel lounge, fretting and subdued--in fact, exuding a sense of quiet so uncharacteristic of the local culture so as to be downright odd. Earlier in the evening, Governor-not-elect Richard J. Codey* addressed the crowd, seeming like a nice man--which, in New Jersey politics, could account for the perplexed silence of the partisans herein. *Readers will recall the resignation of New Jersey Governor James McGreevey, effective November 15th, which propels the ascendence of the state Senate president to the governor's mansion. McGreevey, who resigned in the midst of a patronage scandal that involved...

TRENTON, N.J.--Drat! Your blogstress just learned that nothing she had posted earlier actually published until now! And it's f'n Election Day (Jersey dialect). Although your blogstress published no witticisms of her own, she had published a heartfelt missive from the smoldering Gang of One, and her own little set piece about a set-to on a Washington, D.C., bus. Really, really she did!

TRENTON, N.J.--From Douggie, the Real Estate Maven comes this: OK, so you left the epicenter of political power to go to New Jersey on one of the biggest political days in years. What gives, what are you not telling us, do I dare ask did you leave town to be with some one else? So, back to the matter at hand: it is 9:30 at night and no witty writings, hmmmmmmm? Well, yes, your blogstress has been quite remiss (bad blogstress!) in not, as yet, issuing the witticisms promised in an earlier post. And while Douggie clearly has a lascivious imagination when it comes to your Webwench's personal life, alas, the cause of the absent witticisms had to do with your cybertrix's pesky day job, the cause of her Jersey soujourn. And so, the panic scenario your écrivaine had envisioned came not to pass in your net-tête 's homeland, as the more prescient had predicted. Karen, Executrix of Jersey, comes to mind. Earlier, a voice mail was left by the Executrix, who said: I spent...

TRENTON, N.J.--From the smoldering Gang of One comes this: Blogstress knows I am a member of the opposing camp, and we have had our donnybrooks regarding the liberal camp versus the conservative horde. But I am not here to shill for my man, nor pick a fight with those loyal to the challenger. I suppose I am here as an American. An American pained by the sharp divisions in our nation. I am distressed that we have come to such blows and to such horrific mudslinging. I recall in the last election so-called celebrities vowing to move to Paris or some other imagined haven were George W. Bush to become POTUS. I cannot understand this mindset. To me, that is sullen, immature and selfish. Only spoiled children turn their backs on their siblings. It is possible that John F. Kerry wins tonight. If he does, he will still be my president. I may disagree with his philosophy. I may have serious issues with his agenda. But it is the Office that I cannot turn my back on. If Kerry wins, I can onl...

WASHINGTON, D.C.--His name, he said, was Apocalypse, a rather improbable appellation for this plump, baby-faced young man of maybe 19 or 20. What occasioned the conversation was your blogstress's "I Voted" sticker, tentatively laid on the collar of her fabulous black leather jacket, which he noticed as she sat herself down across the aisle from him on the number 96 bus. "You did that," he said. Your Webwench looked around. The man in the wheelchair who had gotten on the bus just ahead of your cybertrix fumbled around a minute in his wallet, proudly producing his own sticker. A further scan of the passengers revealed most wearing the cute little stickers. Most were African-American. Apocalypse appeared to be of mixed heritage, his dreads, about the thickness of the wool used for baby sweaters, were bleached to a soft gold that matched his perfectly smooth skin; his eyes a merry shape and blue-green. "Well, did you?" your cybertrix asked. Well,...

It just gets better and better. Fate is taking your blogstress tomorrow evening to chronicle the election returns from Trenton, New Jersey. ("Trenton Makes, the World Takes," say the big, block letters mounted to the side of a bridge that spans the Delaware River.) So your Webwench will be making blog in Trenton, from which the world will take countless witticisms, no doubt. Sincerest apologies are issued by your cybertrix to those who had planned to wander through the Oppo Factory to be part of the blogstressing experience; your net-tête swears she'll make it up to you (though some are likely to get more made than others). So send those e-mails, and she'll endeavor to get them up. Douggie the Real Estate Maven; Nancy the New York Artist; Karen, Executrix of Jersey; Spirit Guide; SallieSixToes; the Internationalist; Beltway Breaker; Bai Lon, the White Dragon; Play Right; Lips Buzz; the Fabulous Frankie G. (your blogstress's partner in musical crimes); and...

As she did during the debates, your cybertrix will be blogging the election results and election night coverage in real time. For up-to-the-minute commentary, tune into AddieStan.com, and join the conversation. In addition to your beguiling Webwench, AddieStan.com on election night will feature a revolving cast of readers, bloggers and whichever characters choose to wander into your blogstress's Oppo Factory.

Though your écrivaine remains eternally mystified by the fact of the occasional sane-sounding voice on the other side, she reluctantly admits to having found one, or rather it having found her. Barry Johnson's take on the state of the Garden State is much the same as your Webwench's, though, for him, it's a state of affairs that suits his needs. (Mars, Venus: we got some very different needs.) From Barry's blog, The Hopeful Cynic , we learn: I don't think John Kerry has a reasonably probable electoral vote win path if he loses New Jersey to George Bush, and I don't think that's out of the question right now, especially on the heels of Osama Bin Laden's tape release on Friday... It looks like the Quinnipiac numbers out last week continue to paint a bleak picture for Kerry in NJ, and these were from interviews conducted before the Bin Laden tape on Friday. Read Barry on Jersey

As your blogstress frets about trauma, Osama and Jersey City, others have taken a broader view of the 2004 presidential contest. In his National Journal column, Off Message , William Powers calls us back to a time when we could all be afraid together, rather than blaming each other for facilitating fear: [B]y and large, atomic-age fear was a fear that united. We experienced it collectively, in effect as one big family. The most beloved kitsch images of the time are about domestic preparations for the big blast, and the families depicted always have a generic Norman Rockwell look. Powers goes on to remind us that the outcome of this election will not cause civilization to end (though some of us wonder if it hasn't already). A welcome corrective to an overheated environment. (What global warming?) Plus, if more enticement is needed, there's a delightful William Shatner sighting in there. (We hear he's recording another music album. And for that, we're very afr...

Being the blithely arch but lighthearted creature she is, your blogstress maintains an alter-ego to handle life's more somber moments: a mostly serious journalist who writes under the byline of Adele M. Stan. For weeks, Stan has labored over a piece on what she calls the politics of trauma, a brand of politicking she claims has replaced the much-vaunted politics of fear: The politics of fear is based around ideas such as these: that homosexuals are out to recruit your children, that God will punish the nation for its sins, that the family is broken when women have power, that membership in the United Nations demands the surrender of our nation's sovereignty. In short, the politics of fear exploits the trepidation innate in humans when facing change of any kind, and tweaks it to a twitchy pitch in times of great social change. The politics of trauma is another beast entirely, based as it is, not on fear of the unknown, but the exploitation of something atroc...