Anticipating ambush

The polling looks good in NH and it sounds like it's moving nationally as well...

So why am I still sitting here waiting for the other shoe to drop? Perhaps because I'm so used to being disappointed. I keep thinking of the end of the movie Bulworth, which I don't want to ruin for you if you haven't seen it. Let's just say that everything is so hopeful and then suddenly all that hope is dashed irrevocably by the forces opposing change. Now, god forbid, I don't think it will be dashed in precisely that same way, but I have a feeling that the old guard won't go quietly. I think there are a lot of people in politics who have a vested interest in things staying just as fucked up and gridlocked as they are now, and who will stop at almost nothing to avoid the rise of a movement candidacy intended to change Washington. I don't know what they'll do, but I know they won't just sit back and let it happen without a fight.

And so, I wait and worry. The key, as all good political operatives know, is that if you are going to knock your opponent down you want to make sure they stay down. It won't be a series of bites at the ankles, it will be a huge hit on their character or fitness. Some piece of dirt that's been held onto in the vault for just this purpose. Or, if you don't have any dirt, you make some up. (McCain's daughter and John Kerry's swiftboat comrades say hi.)

It is this part of the campaign that makes me wonder how the candidates do it. How do they withstand the worry and the pressure, the certainty that someone will be attempting to smear them but not knowing which direction it will come from? I would be an absolute wreck wondering what the attack would be. It takes a stronger constitution than I have to subject yourself and your family to that sort of fear and worry.