My big period of Anglophilia coincided with Betty Boothroyd’s tenure as Speaker of the House of Commons. For we Americans, whose actual legislative activities tend to be kind of sedate (despite how absurd our campaigns can get), the more spirited discussions that happen in other countries’ legislatures can be interesting. The fistfights that break out between legislators get the most attention, but Betty Boothroyd had a way of asserting order in the House of Commons that really captivated me and made C-SPAN’s airing of Prime Minister’s Question Time must-see television for me. (I’m weird, I know.) Boothroyd’s tenure as Speaker spanned the 1997 General Election where Tony Blair’s Labour party swept to power, handing the Conservatives their worst defeat since their disastrous 1945 performance, and I watched the BBC’s coverage of election night live on C-SPAN. Then as now, British election coverage is much more informative, and much more entertaining, than what you see here in America for our elections, and I’ve been watching UK election night coverage ever since, even spending some nights watching videos of old coverage on YouTube. It’s not parkour, but it keeps me entertained, at least.

Looking back at that election, though, one of the most enduring moments from that night was the outgoing Prime Minister, John Major, addressing his troops after having his lunch handed to him by Labour. He had to have known that there was no chance he’d be Prime Minister after that night, but as results kept coming in from across Great Britain, and the historic scope of the Conservative defeat became clear, he was placed in the absolutely horrid position of having to tell his supporters that eighteen years of Conservative dominance had just come to a resounding and utterly painful end. Major had to concede an absolute, crushing defeat, but also give his supporters a pep talk, something that honoured the work they put into a very difficult campaign, and try to provide them with something to hold onto in the wake of that defeat, some spark at the end of what was sure to be a very long, very dark tunnel they had to go through. Faced with such an immense and unenviable task, John Major gave a nearly note-perfect speech, admitting everything that had gone wrong, but assuring conservatives across Great Britain that they would have another day in the sun. I can’t think of a more effective or more elegant concession speech in my lifetime:

Four years ago, after the triumphs and setbacks that began with the 1994 Republican Revolution, American conservatism was dealt a huge blow when Barack Obama beat John McCain for the presidency. With Democrats also making substantial gains in both houses of Congress, it’s hard to think of a darker night for the Republican party in recent memory. That was an emotional night for me; even though I’d voted for Ralph Nader, I still cried after Obama secured the presidency, in large part because I’d lost my father earlier that year and I wished he could have been alive for that historic moment. I still sometimes go on YouTube and look up videos of the news networks calling the election, as well as cell phone videos from Obama supporters in Grant Park that night who recorded the magic moment and the mighty roar that came when the video screens showed CNN declaring Obama to be President-elect. It was an historic moment, without question, but it was also a deeply touching moment for me.

On that night, though, many Republicans did not go down quietly or respectfully. I do not blame John McCain for this, as he struck the right tone in his concession speech, but the reaction of the Republican crowd when McCain announced his concession was highly inappropriate. Although Obama’s victory was hardly an FDR-esque or Reagan-like landslide, it was pretty darn solid — certainly by a far larger margin than Bush 43’s two elections — and yet the moment McCain began to reference the gracious phone call he’d just made to Obama, there was a hue and cry from the crowd as if they were trying to deny Obama’s victory by sheer force of will. Disappointment at a loss is inevitable and understandable, but the tone McCain’s supporters took that night was just rude:

Fast-forward to today, six weeks before the next presidential election. Republicans rebounded from their 2008 losses with a strong performance in the 2010 midterm elections, and there’s been a general sense over the past couple of years that the slow economic recovery would be the lead weight that any Republican could attach to Obama and sink his reelection chances. Looking at how Obama and Mitt Romney have fared in the electoral college this year, though, it’s looking more and more like most of us thought the economy would be more of a negative for Obama than it’s turned out to be. More importantly, Romney has run the least effective presidential campaign in recent memory, having to do too much damage control to put out a strong message, and not putting out many constant messages because the campaign keeps reinventing itself, making it impossible to make anything more than “Obama’s economy stinks” stick with people.

A lot can happen in these next six weeks; a European financial collapse will certainly work to Romney’s favour because it will recall what happened here in America four years ago (and we’d feel the effects of the collapse quickly), and rapidly-escalating tensions with Iran could easily lead to open acts of aggression before the election. After the Democrats’ convention thoroughly trumped the Republicans’, though, I’ve said that this is Obama’s election to lose now, that unless we have one of these world-shaking events here then the only way Romney wins on the sixth of November is if Obama makes some huge missteps, and since the conventions it’s seemed like it’s just been one huge gaffe for the Romney campaign after another. If the election were held today — and keep in mind that early voting is already going on in over twenty states — Romney would win the McCain states and Indiana, and maybe North Carolina, and that would be it. He has a lot of ground to make up in a rapidly-shrinking period of time, and all his recent efforts to shrink that gap only seem to widen it.

Right-wing media has only ratcheted up their efforts to immerse conservatives in an alternate reality these past four years, and part of me wonders if the whole “Obama can’t win because of the economy” mentality was something that seeped over from right-wing media into the mainstream thanks to docile and lazy journalists. (See: Sherrod, Shirley.) Since Romney isn’t moving in the polls, they’re now doubling down on their “lying liberals run the polls” rhetoric, twisting the numbers until they break and then gluing them back together so they look like what they’d like them to be. What will they think on Election Night if President Obama gets re-elected? Will they think that Rush Limbaugh and Fox News led them astray with all their rhetoric? Will they think Obama stole an election with the help of “those damn liberal pollsters” or somesuch? Might they think that Romney actually won, and the “lamestream media” is just lying when they say Obama won? Given the way some on the far right have been talking, that last scenario is seeming more and more likely.

Assuming Obama wins, and the margins aren’t razor-thin like they were in 2000 and 2004, I have no doubt that Romney will give a concession speech. I’m not saying it’ll be a good concession speech — he’s only really sounded presidential at his own campaign — but he will say that he lost the election fair and square. My worry is that the reaction we saw to McCain’s concession speech in 2008 will get worse this time around, conservative anger and resentment reaching the boiling point. If Romney loses, we may see a lot more than angry shouting when Romney is forced to deliver that toughest of political speeches.