Chunk 40: President in purgatory.

For all the voter data and polling that presidential aides purport to have access to, they have a pretty terrible record at predicting election results. That, or perhaps their sycophancy towards their candidate blinds them. Just take a look at a few of the results over the past twenty years:

In 2000, Vice President Al Gore was so convinced that he had lost the state of Florida, he rang then-Texas Governor George W. Bush to concede the entire presidential election, only to call him back a short time later to retract the concession. Bush, understandably none-too-pleased at the turn of events, apparently was not shy in letting Gore know about it, to which the former vice president memorably replied, “Well, there’s no need to get snippy about it.”.

So that’s one.

In 2004, Senator John Kerry’s staff were so encouraged by the exit polling on election day that they began referring to him as “Mr President”. He, of course, would ultimately also lose to George W. Bush.

That’s two.

In 2012, Mitt Romney’s staff and supporters were so confident of him pulling out a close election win over Barack Obama that even his family were calling him “Mr President”. Don’t you think they would have learned from eight years before?

That’s three.

In 2016, the media were so adamant that Hillary Clinton was destined to become the first female president of the United States that they had essentially called the race for her weeks before a single vote had even been cast.

That’s four.

And then, of course, we have this year’s calamity, that saw Donald Trump declare himself victor at 10 pm on election night, despite mountains of absentee ballots - a by-product of his mishandling of the Coronavirus - even being counted yet.

That’s five.

At least the first four candidates had the dignity to accept the final result. Almost a month after election day, Trump is still claiming electoral fraud, desperate at all costs to avoid being called the thing he hates most: the dreaded “L” word. (Hint, it’s not “loveable”.)

In the 1993 film “Sleepless in Seattle”, Tom Hanks calls into a local radio show to bemoan the loss of his wife. In this 2020 follow-up I’m calling “President in Purgatory”, Donald Trump calls into Fox News to bemoan the loss of the recent election.

Doubtless Tom Hanks is a much better actor, but it’s unlikely even he would have been able to do much with the lines (lies?) Trump was trying to spin the other night with Fox News host, Maria Bartiromo …

“Dead people were seeing ballots. But, even worse, dead people were applying to get a ballot. They were making applications to get ballots, many. And, you know, we're not talking about 10 people. We're talking - there are a lot of dead people that so-called voted in this election. But dead people were, in some cases, in many, many cases, thousands of cases, voted, but, also, dead people made applications to vote. They were dead 10 years, 15 years, and they actually made applications.”

It’s true; the man with the nuclear codes actually said this. Sitting idly by in his temporary government housing, watching the clock until Joe Biden is sworn in as the 45th POTUS, Trump is a deeply troubled man.

Forget romantic comedies, I think we’re moving into an entirely different movie genre here. It’s “The Sixth Sense” and Donald Trump is seeing dead people.