Straight off the overnight plane from a work trip to Miami I head for Paddy Power in Camberwell. I think I know what the result of the American election is going to be. Luckily for me (or perhaps for them) they are still closed so I wheel my suitcase home and the moment passes. My plan had been to lay a tenner on Romney winning and Biden remaining vice president. A 269/269 split in the electoral college is a real possibility (Romney takes Florida, Ohio, North Carolina and Nevada but Obama holds some of the smaller states, plus Virginia, and gets to the tie) and, in theory at least, an election settled in the House of Representatives, which would vote, in state blocs, for the Republican presidential candidate; and the Senate, which would choose the vice president, probably electing the Democrat. Of course, in the modern world the pressure on the members of the electoral college to change their allegiance and back the man who won the popular vote would be intense, so it might never get to congress. But my Romney-Biden ticket is still technically possible. I might discreetly manufacture some badges.
Mitt Romney owes me money. I say this with no bitterness — it is quite right that those with the broadest shoulders etc, etc — but for the record I think the sum is $2.70: it was the cost of a couple of sandwiches at the Republican Ladies’ stall at their Iowa annual meeting somewhere near Des Moines in spring 2007. Romney and his wife were there but they had rather large-denomination dollar bills so to avoid embarrassment I stumped up and we ate our sandwiches together with a man from the local paper and a single security guard.
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