If you can't lose with grace, don't play.

Sometime during the Democratic primary, my friend Doug said to me 'Bush is going to take NY'. He didn't mean put it in his pocket and haul it away, he meant in the election, in November, this year. My response, if I remember correctly, was 'you're on crack'.

Partly because of superstition and partly because I think overconfidence makes voters stay home, I have never, not for one second, thought to myself 'Bush has got this, it's a lock'. Not even when the polls swung in his direction, not even when our convention kicked their convention's ass all over primetime, not even when Howard Dean looked to be the nominee. The truth remains that anything can happen. There can be external things that happen, like a terrorist attack, or there could just be one party doing a lot better in the Get Out The Vote effort than the other. There can be a dirty secret revealed about one or the other of the candidates on November 1st. Anything is possible in this tight race.

I mention all this because I can't take the incessant poll watching and hand wringing on either side of the political aisle. The same Doug that thought Bush was going to win NY, instant messaged me today to complain that Kerry was leading in Ohio, and ask what we're going to do if Kerry wins. Ace is driving me nuts with his posting of every poll that shows Bush down (though he does qualify it by asking Bush-supporters not to go to pieces and to go vote). Dawn Summers is driving me extra nuts with her 'oh no, oh no, oh no' every time Kerry or Edwards says anything stupid (so, daily, pretty much).

So, here's the deal. Politics, and politics-watching, is a sport. Get our team to beat your team. Get their guy to fumble the ball during a pass. Get the three-point shot when no one expects it. Yes, yes, there are very important issues in play and of course these issues matter but if you can't take the excitement of the game, if you threaten to move to France if your team doesn't win, if you can't have a conversation without raising your voice, or see a poll without freaking out, get off the freaking court. I'm not going anywhere if there is a president Kerry. I love this country and will love it just the same even if I don't like the president's policies. I understand that if my guy loses, I will have to hear some 'nyah nyah nyah na' on November 3rd but Mets fans have to deal with that yearly and they're not leaving New York. We'll all live to fight another day, play another game, say 'we'll get 'em next time'.

Now let's go get out the vote to get Bush in the White House for another 4 years. Stop whining and go to Pennsylvania or Ohio. Email me and ask me how.

(I changed the timestamp on this entry to make it appear after my long live-blogging the debate post).