Dull Aches and Sudden Pains

Throughout the world a billion hearts sank when they saw Osama bin Laden on their screens…not because he terrifies us – we knew that he was still alive and we know that terrorists are still out there with itchy trigger fingers. No, it was the dull ache that comes with the realisation that this could be the biggest knee to the groin the anti-Bush movement could have feared.

Ah…but how bad is it really? Bush and Kerry in this campaign are like two metal balls joined by elastic – one candidate tries to pull away only for them both to snap back together with a dull thud. Even the bin Laden video has failed to clear the waters of mud. The video was close enough to the election for its effects on voters not to have dissipated, bearing in mind that terror threats have tended to increase Bush's popularity for a small time in the past…but it is so close to the election that there may not be anyone left to persuade to alter their vote. Secondly, the "Bush as war leader" motif may have been strengthened by the video, but on the other hand it shows him up as to have failed to beat bin Laden at the time.

I give up. There's too much craziness in the air and I believe this strange atmosphere can only help Bush, to whom deception and fear are not things to be afraid of…they are his weapons, and he is armed to the teeth.

The retrospectives, hindsight, what-ifs and I-told-you-so's will soon be a flood that will sweep through the media, smashing all in its wake. But there are still a handful of hours in which to stew. So for now there is one way of finding out for yourself the outcome of this, and indeed any, election. Find yourself a darkened room. Read the candidate list out loud. And that grim, twisted knot of fear you feel in your stomach when you read out one of the names? That's your signal; you've found your winner.