Sprint to the Finish: The Last 15 meters

November 3, 2012.  Even the indefatigable Gail Collins sounds tired, in her last column before Nov 6. 
My swimming coach used to say races are won in the last 15 meters, when you are really burning out, arms like lead, legs dead, and there's that finish wall ahead, can you hold your breath and burn your last few molecules of sugar and ATP?

It has all come down to who is more motivated, Democrats or Republicans. Who is willing to wait on line. That is all democracy demands of its citizens in this nation. And for some, even that inconvenience will be too much to ask. They will stay home and watch it on TV. They will have excuses for why they did not need to vote or did not want to vote.

The choice can be crystallized into a simple proposition: Do you believe in the possibility of good government or do you believe in no government? 

Or, if you are one of those who votes on "the man" rather than the issues:  Do you believe in President Obama or Mr. Romney?  

Mad dog admits to a certain color blindness on this one:  Mr. Romney is the ultimate con man--look up "con man" in the dictionary and they'll have a picture of Mitt Romney right there. He is a complexity of hating government regulation, except when he doesn't, banking in off shore accounts and accusing Mr. Obama of apologizing to the world for America (as if an offshore account is an endorsement of America), of bragging about Romneycare until it became Obamacare, when it became an anathema.  The list goes on... and on. The fact is, this guy is not even a Republican. He's a fast-talking, slick used car salesman, selling not cars, because he insists American car companies are shipping jobs to China. No, he is selling fantasies, or, put less delicately, lies.

If I were a Republican, a Republican who had voted for Ronald Reagan, for George H.W. Bush, for Gerald Ford, for Eisenhower, I would still be unable to bear the stench emanating from Mr. Romney. Couldn't do it. 

But for Mad Dog, the basic proposition is are you more afraid of Big government or of Bad government. You surely will get Bad government from the Republicans, by design. Even if you get Big government from the Democrats, well, maybe, sometimes, that's not so bad. Like when you have a really big problem, which covers the entire Atlantic seaboard.

Nick Anderson, Houston Chronicle