October 31, 2004 - We are into the last 48 hours of the closest Presidential election campaign since – well, since 2000. Both campaigns are concentrating on the swing states of the upper Midwest today and sending Bill Clinton and John McCain into New Mexico and New Hampshire. It is Sunday just two days before the polls open and the Bush campaign is counting on a pulpit appeal for ballots from thousands of fundamentalist congregations across the country. It is also counting on the First Marine Expeditionary Force at Fallujah. It would not do for the first Republican Wartime President since Nixon to face re-election to do so without a hot wartime battle to dominate the news. At least nine US Marines paid the price of a politically driven war yesterday, nine others were wounded. More will pay the price today as the political imperatives of the New American Empire trump the Iraqi Interim Government’s hopes that Fallujah can be brought under control without reducing its buildings to rubble and its population to shreds of torn flesh.

The President is counting on the news from the front to crowd questions about the al Qaqaa explosives out of the public consciousness. He hopes the sound of gunfire will mute a whistleblower’s questions being asked about Halliburton’s no bid contracts. He hopes that Bin Laden’s face reminding the public that after a three year manhunt he is still at large and very much alive will be pushed off the nation’s TV screens by a symphony of 500 pound bombs and Marine blood as we destroy Fallujah in order to save it for Liberated Iraq. It is Halloween, you know, so cue up the Ride of the Valkyries and send in the Marines.

It is only 48 hours before the Republican election security teams fan out across Florida and Ohio to keep the vote and the vote counting secure from interference from persons of color who seek to participate in our quadrennial ritual. It is only 48 hours until Republican election security teams fan out to suppress the “Detroit” vote. That is what Presidential politics has boiled down to in 2004 – suppressing the vote and terrorizing the voters with images of crumbling buildings. How appropriate that it is Halloween and the scariest thing to knock on your door will be dressed in a jet jockey’s flight suit, wearing a War President mask, and waving cheerleader pom-poms.

It is Halloween and the annual kid’s festival of dressing up and gorging on candy isn’t such harmless fun anymore. It has been taken over by the adults – the Tricks are not harmless and the Treats they are looking for won’t be sweet.

And that is the way it is this All Hallows Eve.