'Sense of Impending Doom' Overcomes Obamatons

They're living in fear of another election being stolen from them. Really, I should pity these people. They're just too pathetic.

“Look, I have this sense of impending doom; we’ve had a couple of elections stolen already,” Mr. Downs said. “The only thing worse than losing is to think that you’re going to win and then lose.”

He considers that prospect and mutters, almost involuntarily, “Oh, God.”

To talk with left-leaning Democrats in New Hope, San Francisco or Miami Beach, to drill deep into their id, is to stand at the intersection of Liberal and High Anxiety.

Right now, more than a few are having a these-polls-are-too-good-to-be-true, we-still-could-lose-this-election moment. Their consuming and possibly over-caffeinated worry is that their prayers and nightly phone calls to undecided voters in Toledo, Ohio, notwithstanding, Mr. Obama might fall short on Election Day.

To walk on Broadway, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, is to feel their pain. “Oh, God, I’m optimistic, but I can’t look at the polls,” said Patricia Kuhlman, 54, nervously tapping her Obama/Biden ’08 button. “I’m a PBS/NPR kind of person, and, O.K., I do look at some polls.”

Ms. Kuhlman shakes her head and says, “If he doesn’t get this, I’ll be crying so hard.”

A young woman, Shana Rosen, walks by. She is from Denver and said she had told her boyfriend that their love life was on hold while she sweated out Mr. Obama’s performance in Colorado. Ask Lucy Slurzberg, an Upper West Side psychotherapist, how many of her liberal patients speak of their electoral fears during their sessions, and she answers: “Oh, only about 90 percent of them.”

Certainly, national and swing state polls suggest that Democrats might allow themselves a deep breath or two. But liberals are not inclined to relax, given the circumstances of their last two defeats. Hanging chad, the Supreme Court decisions, and Florida and Ohio’s electoral problems: it is a lifetime of agita to staunch Democrats. The prospect of success now comes scented with dread.

Conservatives, it must be said, are not immune from the worry vapors. Therapists report that Republicans are hyperventilating too. “Wealthy Republicans are very anxious about taxes,” Jamie Wasserman, a psychotherapist with a practice on the Upper West Side and in Montclair, N.J., said of her patients. “They are not pretending to vote for the black man.”

And in Ohio, evangelical radio stations feature pastors praying for God to help voters ignore these “awful” polls and vote his will.

Many liberal Democrats watch MSNBC, but some say it sounds too much like comfort food. CNN serves its election coverage with a stiff little chaser of doubt for Democrats, and many liberals say CNN and NPR are their regular evening companions. If they really want to rub the sore tooth of worry, they dial over to the “Obama’s radical friend Bill Ayers” channel, otherwise known as Fox News.

“Mostly I flip between CNN and MSNBC, but I go to Fox if I want to get enraged,” Mr. Downs said.

Geez, people, how about getting a life? I'd probably be depressed too if I was surrounded by these dorks on the Upper West Side. They need to get out and enjoy life away from their comfortable bubble.

Liberals are found in almost every corner of the United States, as are their conservative counterparts. But the tribe’s denser concentrations are along the ideological Interstate that runs from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., to the Raleigh-Durham area of North Carolina, to the Adams Morgan section of Washington, to Montclair, to Park Slope in Brooklyn, to the Upper West Side of Manhattan, to Cambridge, Mass., Burlington, Vt., and Ann Arbor, Mich., and so on until it reaches the Pacific.

And from those redoubts, how can one gauge what is going on in the fairly broad expanses of this nation that are not 94.3 percent liberal Democrat? Unfamiliarity spikes the anxiety.

“We live in a bubble,” Ms. Serizawa said. “I drove to Monterey recently, and I saw my first McCain placard ever.”

Man, time for another therapy session. Just imagine the horror of seeing a McCain sign. Can they go on?

OK, well, if they're so depressed, they can read this bit of agitprop from AP, where they apparently haven't been lurking about in Manhattan or New Hope.

That smiling guy walking down the street? Odds are he's a Barack Obama backer. The grouchy looking one? Don't ask, and don't necessarily count on him to vote on Tuesday, either.

More John McCain supporters feel glum about the presidential campaign while more of Obama's are charged up over it, according to an Associated Press-Yahoo! News poll released Saturday.

The survey shows McCain backers have become increasingly upset in recent weeks, a period that has seen Obama take a firm lead in many polls. One expert says the contrasting moods could affect how likely the two candidates' supporters are to vote on Election Day, possibly dampening McCain's turnout while boosting Obama's.

While 43 percent of the Democrat Obama's backers said they are excited over the campaign, just 13 percent of McCain's said so, according to the survey of adults, conducted by Knowledge Networks. Six in 10 Obama supporters said the race interests them, compared to four in 10 backing McCain, the Republican senator from Arizona.

On the flip side, 52 percent of McCain supporters said the campaign has left them frustrated, compared to 30 percent of Obama's. A quarter of McCain backers say they feel helpless, double the rate of those preferring Obama, the Illinois senator.

More McCain supporters also feel angry and bored, while Obama's are likelier to say they are proud and hopeful.

On the upside, there's only four days left of this silliness and a new era of hope and change will wash over the fruited plain.

Or will it?