You couldn't turn on the TV news or pick up a paper during the election season without stumbling across the latest political poll and the pros explaining how to parse it, or some set of commentators, pundits, and reporters placing their bets on the election results. The media, of course, loves a political horse race and, as those 2010 midterms approached, you could easily feel like you weren't catching the news but visiting an Off-Track Betting parlor.
Fortified by rounds of new polls and all those talking heads calibrating and recalibrating prospective winners and losers, seats “leaning Democratic” and “leaning Republican,” the election season essentially became an endless handicapping session. This is how American politics is now framed -- as a months or years-long serial election for which November 2nd is a kind of hangover. Then, only weeks after the results are in, the next set of polls will be out and election 2012, the Big Show, will be on the agenda with all the regular handicappers starting to gather at all the usual places.
Doesn’t it strike you as odd, though, that this mania for handicapping remains so parochially electoral? After all, it could be applied to so many things, including the state of the world at large as seen from Washington. So consider this my one-man tip sheet on what you could think of as the global midterms, focused on prospective winners and losers, as well as those “on the cusp,” including crucial countries and key personalities.
http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/148701
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