Lorie Byrd: Election Day has nightmares all its own for political junkies

Television airwaves this month have been filled with horror movies which fall into several categories. Some are the fantasy variety featuring other worldly monsters, from classics such as “Frankenstein” and “Dracula” to mutant creatures from outer space altered by toxic waste.

Other horror flicks are more reality based, such as movies like “Psycho” and “The Silence of the Lambs.” I enjoy most of them (just please no “Friday the 13th” slasher types) but the ones I find scariest are those most closely rooted in reality. The most horrific horror films are the ones most easily imagined being possible.

The television has been transmitting some pretty scary political messages lately, too. Just as in horror films, the scariest political scenarios are the ones with the greatest possibility of coming to pass.

It is pretty easy to see what scares Democrats and Republicans most by simply watching a few of their scary campaign ads. The scary ones usually include some ominous sounding music in the background with a very serious voice talking over it.

If sales of Halloween masks are any indication, the thing considered scariest to those on the right is Hillary Clinton — specifically the possibility of a Hillary Clinton presidency.

A third Clinton administration, if ever realized, is still two years away, though. The most frightening immediate prospect for those on the right is one of a Democrat majority Congress, specifically a House of Representatives led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Often Pelosi is described as a “San Francisco liberal.” Being that she is from San Francisco and very liberal, the rule about the scariest things being those based in reality holds true.

Fears of a Democrat-controlled Congress include the scary promise they have made to scrap the Bush tax cuts, their stated intention to start multiple investigations and their lack of a plan to deal with Iraq. Republicans also find it horrifying to contemplate Democrats in control of the military or with a majority vote on Supreme Court justices.

Unfortunately for many on the left, their greatest fears have already been realized.

If their rhetoric is to be believed, Democrats find President Bush scarier than vampires, witches, zombies and Freddie Krueger all rolled into one. Not even the threat of terrorism is to be feared more than that of the Bush-Cheney monster guided by the evil genius, Karl Rove.

The other nightmare from which Democrats have found themselves unable to awaken for the past 12 years, is that of a Republican-controlled Congress. Democrats complain that Republicans threaten to take away a woman’s right to choose by confirming right-wing extremist judges to the bench, and that they have already taken away other individual human rights through passage of the Patriot Act, such as the right to check out bomb-making books from the library and to plot with terrorists over the telephone.

While those movies rooted in reality are the ones I find scariest, they are also some of my favorites because so often the victim in the movie holds the power to control their own fate.

The movies I am referring to are those that have audiences screaming out warnings like, “Turn around” and “Don’t go in there!” If only the victims in so many of these horror movies would just exercise a little common sense, they would be far more likely to survive the two hour ordeal.

The scariest political scenarios are similar to those in the movies because control over the outcome there is also in our hands. So instead of yelling, “Don’t go in there,” to characters on a movie screen, what I find myself wanting to yell each election season is, “Get out there and vote.”

Those on the right, not wanting to see “The Return of the Tax Monster” and those on the left wishing an end to the 12-year run of “The Creatures from the Red States” can do something about it.

Not only can citizens vote to keep their political nightmares from coming true, but they can still contribute money to candidates they would like to see win, as well as volunteer for their campaigns and volunteer to help their preferred political party “get out the vote” on Election Day.

There is one week left, an eternity in politics, to play a role in slaying the beast from your worst political nightmares. Never fear. If you aren’t successful this time around, there is always the possibility of playing a part in the 2008 sequel.