NYC Obamaniacs Putting Fingers in Ears ‘Til Tuesday

"La la la la I can't hear you," says America's bluest electorate

The bet-hedging panic has reached fever pitch.

One minute, SNL is running (terrible, overly long) skits about how Obama's got it all locked up so he and Michelle are going to host a variety show; the next, there are think pieces about how overconfidence has played out in electoral history. And let's not forget the polls: New polls, timeline polls, side-by-side comparison polls, poll-trackers -- and those are just the actual polls, not the meta-poll polls, or even the meta pieces about polls: how polling can go wrong, why polling works, why polling doesn't work, polling discrepancies, dirty polling techniques. And there's one of the most desperate we-have-no-news-so-this-is-news pieces ever: CNN doing a story about how the networks will cover the election if the race is decided early (unlike in 2000, say, when the too-close-to-call Bush-Gore hoedown turned into a news-channel Woodstock of yammering experts, pie charts and what-if scenarios, journos fairly frenching each other with ratings ecstasy before passing out naked in puddles of mud).

Most dems we've talked to are feeling a bit like seniors right before finals: They have a bad case of nervous tummy and just want everything to be over, already. They've invested too much time and effort nurturing their Obama dreams via buttons, tote bags and blog posts to consider anything other than a world in which he is the next president. And yet the midst of all this hoo-ha, Doree Shafrir at The New York Observer points out that in the event of an Obama victory, New York democrats -- many of whom have spent the last eight years getting comfy in their little nests of Bush-bashing blue-trumps-red superiority, with all its talk of New York seceding from the rest of the nation -- will be faced with an interesting new dilemma. As Gawker puts it:

"Terrible news: if Obama wins, you have to love America! That's right, New Yorkers have given the game away-all the hipster Obama gear and unconcealed excitement at his candidacy means no longer can we hide behind our secret glee at the utter rejection of our values and lifestyle by 'Real America.' "

Hmm, so does this mean that to maintain our cozy feeling of knowing better, we'd be better off with a McCain-Palin sweep? Is this a classic case of being careful what you wish for?

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