Between now and then

“Several geological ages will come and go between now and the 2016 elections.” –Carl Rove

Atlanta, GA – On Saturday, in Des Moines, Iowa, congressman Steve King held the “Freedom Summit,” with such Republican Nominee hopefuls as Chris Christi, Rick Perry, etc. etc. The headlines about Hillary yesterday on Politico were about how, in the past the probability, they said, was 98% that she would run. Now it has crept up to somewhere around 100.

Besides that, the news is full of mentions, such as on Huffington Post, of “Republican Bigwig goes after nomination,” or even the Guardian, the British paper, running articles about whether Scott Walker is the man of the hour. But let’s not forget, November 4, 2,016 is still a long way away. 650 days to be exact.

How long is that? Well:

There will be two full baseball season between now and then.

And also two super bowls.

If you still think the wait is not going to be too long, look at it this way. The story behind the movie In the Heart of the Sea about the men who inspired Moby Dick, and their horrible journey of starvation and dying of thirst, only took 94 days. In other words, they could have lived out that story more than six times between now and then.

And another survival story, Shackleton, and his men, only took 497 days. 153 days less than between now and the election.

So in other words, there is a long ,long time between now and then, and Hillary, and anyone else who may look like a frontrunner may topple. Even a day is an eternity in politics, and the earth must turn completely around 650 times before the new president is elected. By comparison, Napoleon took about two weeks for his empire to go from being victorious, to nearly nonexistent. He could have fallen more than thirty times between now and then. So could Hillary, or anybody else.

Andrew C. Abbott

(Special thanks to my brother Paul for help with this article.)