Oh yeah! I forgot! The Melbourne Cup!

It passed by for me like the perfect antithesis to the U.S. elections.

It was only through an email from the recently departed Marty, back in Melbourne to turn the city into a yearlong Johntson Street fiesta, who informed me that he was being as unpatriotic as I was, and missed the circus* completely. Well, Philip Adams covered the Melbourne Cup quite well, as far as I can tell (or am concerned) but it does have a hint of the U.S. election to it. The comparison could be just that I've been following the election more closely this time round given a) most of what Dubya even sneezes out is even worse for this here landmass than it is for Australia and b) we have an American in the house. A USian that is (I've been chided harshly by Latin Americans on more than one occasion for calling people from the US "Americans"and dismissing the rest of those in The Americas claim to their own land... typical.)

Yes,... well, here's Philip Adams view on the race that stops a nation, or two.

* (circus - see Macchiavelli, whom I despise, and bread, which I had with vegemite this morning for the first time since I left Australia, to further fever my desires for home... but it left me truly, ecstatically satisfied...)

November 07, 2006
AND as they head into the straight, Democrat is one, two, three lengths ahead! Legendary jockey Karl Rove is flailing his whip at Republican's flanks, but the grand old nag is knackered! In the members, John Howard is yelling his head off. This is the one race Australia's biggest punter on the American horse can't afford to lose, but the odds are against him. Having bet the farm on Republican (out of Dubya, from Texas), Howard will be going home flat broke!
Looking increasingly desperate, the punters who went along with Howard, Peter Costello, Alexander Downer and the rest of them are turning on the PM and hitting him with their binoculars. And even before Democrat passes the post they're tearing up their tickets and heading for the exit. The poor buggers have not only done their money, they've blown their reputations for picking winners. Now Republican stumbles, tosses Rove from the saddle and comes crashing down in a heap. The stewards will have to erect the screens and put the poor brute out its misery. And judging by the expression on Howard's face, they'll need to put him out of his.
Yes, folks, though worth trillions just a few months back, Republican is dog meat and our PM is Pal! To the deafening cheers of the crowd, Democrat cruises home in a canter in what's finished up as a one-horse race. Liberal backers are talking of a new thoroughbred to replace Howard and Costello: Malcolm Turnbull, from Big Money, out of Wentworth. Mind you, Howard did well in the past by backing mounts from the White House (not to be confused with the Waterhouse) stables. By going for Dubya, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld in the trifecta, he won a political fortune and some very big races here in Australia, including two Federal Cups on the trot.
Mind you, with overweight jockeys Kim Beazley and Mark Latham riding Labor into the ground, he didn't have much to beat. Labor performed so badly in their outings on both city and country tracks that the stewards suspected the races had been fixed. But with Bob Hawke and Paul Keating out of the saddle, the old grey mare just ain't what she used to be.
Howard joined his American friends racing into Iraq only to meet stiff Arabian opposition. Though victory seemed certain - Bush claimed it long before the race was over - they've been pipped at every post. Hence present attempts to scratch Cheney and Rumsfeld. Though costing a fortune at the political yearling sales, Neo-con (sired by Paul Wolfowitz) turned out to be such a big dud that he was retired early and sent to stud. But nobody's buying.
Now Howard will have to face a race increasingly dominated by Democrat: the big one, the Melbourne Cup of US and world politics. The only question: who'll be Democrat's jockey? John Kerry fell off a few days back and, despite some support from Rupert Murdoch, a legend at picking winners, few believe Hillary Clinton can last the distance. Scholars of the form guide reckon she's carrying too much weight in her saddlebags and will run out of puff in the last furlongs in Pennsylvania Avenue. Some are barracking for Barack Obama, the dark horse from Illinois, but he's a bit young and needs more track work.
So the smart money's on a jockey many believed was past it. Al Gore. Were he a horse (sired by Bill Clinton, out of Puff) he'd have been regarded as more gelding than stallion. But as a jockey he has done pretty well, beaten only in the most famous photo finish in the history of the Presidential Stakes. Six years ago millions of punters backed Democrat as favourite and felt robbed by the judges when they gave it to Republican. (Certainly Gore's mount seemed a nose ahead in that crucial Florida meeting where the stewards were provided by George Bush's brother.) But now Al has won a key victory in the Climate Change Cup, a race in which Howard and Bush were early scratchings.
The connections of Democrat say Gore has lost weight but gained gravitas, that the punters would cheer his return to the track, remembering how he was dudded in the Presidential Stakes. Even some of Republican's backers must be be feeling guilty.
Most important, the Climate Change Cup is regarded as a desirable trophy. So the odds narrow, with yesterday's long shot looking like tomorrow's dead cert.
A Gore win on Democrat would be even worse for Howard than Republican's failure today. Howard was rude to Gore on his recent visit and dismissive of his horse of the apocalypse, An Inconvenient Truth (out of Time, from CO2). The PM's support for the Bush stable ceases to be a winner, here or in Washington.