This is NACD: Not a Candidate Diary. But it's true that its roots are from listening to election coverage. Maybe too much election coverage but there you go.
Anyway.
Say the name of this year. Right, say it out loud. Odds are that you said "Two thousand eight" just like all the talking head pundits we've all been listening to way too much of lately.
But how often do the pundits get it right? I'm just sayin'.
Have I got your interest? Keep reading...
Let's try a simple exercise. Really, it's easy. Stay with me here.
- What year was the Declaration of Independence signed? Say it out loud. Right, "Seventeen seventy six."
- What's the year a hundred years later? "Eighteen seventy six"
- And a hundred years after that? "Nineteen seventy six", the year we elected our last non-Clinton Democratic president. Okay, I had to get some politics in there somewhere. This is DKos after all.
- (Now it gets interesting.) Okay, say the year a hundred years after the year Jimmy Carter was elected. Let's see, we had "seventeen seventy six", then "eighteen seventy six", then "ninteen seventy six", so this one is "twenty seventy six" - isn't it?
Not seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, two thousand. But rather seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty. Twenty seventy six.
Subtract fifty years and say the name of the year. "Twenty twenty six", right?
Subtract ten more years. Did you get "twenty sixteen"? That's not too far off, either, it's when the vice-president we elect this year will run for president.
Finally, subtract eight more years to get back to where we started, this very year right here. Twenty sixteen minus one Democratic presidency is ... twenty oh eight. Isn't it?
Not two thousand and eight. Real life isn't a Space Odyssey (what's a diary without a linky?). Kubrick mispronounced his movie title, but does that mean we'll be mispronouncing the next thousand years?
I look forward to finding out.
This has been a mild diversion. We now return you to your regularly scheduled candidate wars.