McCainiac

Monday's Washington Post made grim reading for Republicans. A new poll put Obama 10 points ahead of McCain, which means the Illinois Senator is starting to look like he might actually be the next leader of the free world. (I know 10 points may look like he has it sewn up, but the Wilder effect states that he needs to be up by at least double digits even to stand a chance - L. Douglas Wilder becoming the nation's first black governor in Virginia in 1989 by just one-tenth of a percentage point despite polls suggesting beforehand that he would win easily.)

The prospect of a Democratic win means passions are running high in towns across America. Not least in Annapolis, MD, the site of John McCain's alma mater, the US Naval Academy, and where the HQ of the Maryland Republican Party is the first thing you see on leaving the state capital's visitors' centre. We got the chance to witness that heightened passion at first hand on  Sunday when we were accosted in the street by Mrs Disgusted of Annapolis herself. The reasons? Louis's Obama '08 logo-ed change bag (as in "it's time for a change in Washington" and other diaper-related puns), which I was carrying. She stopped us and demanded to know if I knew anything about Obama. Well, yes, actually. I'm not entirely clueless. And then proceeded to harangue us for the next 15 minutes about the evils of a socialist way of life. 

From higher taxes to big government, she was convinced that social Armageddon would follow an Obama win. Rather than take responsibility for her fellow man, she insisted that poor people should be glad for the trickle down hand-outs from their rich superiors. Christ, they should probably pay her for the honour of cutting her grass! America, she said, was the greatest country on earth because it was a democracy. Er, yes, and one that as things stand is keen to elect an African-American Democrat as president, I pointed out. Only if you believe in the fallacies printed by the lying liberal mainstream media, she countered. 

What shocked us most about the McCainiac's ambush was that Americans are generally so friendly. It seemed unconstitutionally nasty to corner a couple with a small baby on the street and attack them like that. But then look what happened during a pro-McCain rally in Manhattan's Upper West Side.  

That's not to excuse the mean Republican witch in Annapolis. Poor Louis was so upset that he started to cry. God knows what she would have done if he had been wearing his Obama onesie. It was a relief to get back to the latte-sipping liberals of Dupont Circle. We'll clearly have to think carefully before venturing out of the District again.