BOSTON, Massachusetts -- Amidst the outbreak of euphoria following Sen. Barack Obama's victory in the Democratic presidential race, prominent legal scholars are raising questions about the constitutionality of holding an actual general election. "It just doesn't seem right," said Professor Laurence Tribe of Harvard Law School, "to diminish the significance of Barack's achievement by forcing him to run around like mad for another five months and beg and grovel for America's votes. I mean, he already has our hearts. Isn't that what the Framers were really after when they talked about the Electoral College and whatnot?"
Obama spokesman David Axelrod, while declaring that the campaign's intention is "to participate fully in the general election, as currently understood," nonetheless found it interesting that "so many of the country's top legal minds are wondering if Barack Obama has in fact already beaten John McCain in a landslide. It really makes you think, doesn't it? Like, is an election something that happens when you pull a lever somewhere, or is it what happens when you encounter Barack Obama and realize you'll never be the same? Wow, I know I don't know the answer to that yet. Does anyone?"
The American Bar Association, weighing in this morning with a press release, urged caution: "The temptation of the present moment will be for the McCain campaign to dig in and stridently insist upon a traditional physical election with all its wearisome pageantry of debates and pins and voting booths. Make no mistake -- that sort of unreasoning attachment to the past is precisely the Old Politics that Barack Obama has so eloquently denounced and called us to transcend. Shall we? While it would be unseemly for the ABA to take anything like an official position on this matter, we would like all Americans to bear in mind that the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life."