DENVER — Both presidential candidates can’t win Tuesday, which means somebody’s got to lose. What if it’s your guy?
Judging from comments from some ardent partisans on the blogosphere and at campaign events, voters for the runner-up will either riot (if Mitt Romney wins), panic (if President Obama wins), or move to Canada (if either candidate wins).
Game-planning the unthinkable, Alli Carter said in a Twitter post Monday: “Who’s down with me with moving to Canada if Romney gets elected?”
Not fellow tweeter Megan Avery. “If Obama wins the presidency, there’s a good chance I’m dropping out of school and moving to Canada,” she wrote.
Then again, there’s a downside to living in Canada, according to Mark Campbell. “Remember, if you’re moving to Canada because you don’t like the outcome of tomorrow’s election, you are required by law to eat ketchup chips,” he posted.
No Romney supporters interviewed at the Republican nominee’s weekend rally in Colorado were planning to move north of the border, but David Bullock of Aurora had already made plans in the event of an Obama victory.
“I’m getting my knee fixed in two weeks,” said Mr. Bullock, “because what if we end up with Obamacare?”
Matt Gray of Parker said he worried that he would lose his job with a coffee company if Mr. Obama were to win re-election. “I won’t have a job if Obama gets re-elected. I’m the new guy on the crew, so I’ll probably cease to exist,” he said.
Tim Tindle of Aurora said he knows what he’s not going to do: “I’m not going to do the MoveOn.org thing where I threaten to burn America to the ground,” Mr. Tindle said. “If Republicans were saying they were going to do that, it would be front-page news.”
He was referring to a video posted last week on MoveOn.org by liberal documentarian Michael Moore showing a roomful of elderly citizens at an assisted-living center.
One woman threatens to “burn this [place] down” if Republicans “steal this election.”
Emotions are running high, the race is tight, the ads are vicious and so are some of the online threats. “I keep seeing people telling Romney supporters to kill themselves and that is really not OK,” wrote a Twitter user, identified as Sophieshy, on Monday.
The website Twitchy has kept track of Twitter feeds that warn of riots in the wake of a Romney victory. The site, operated by conservative pundit Michelle Malkin, posted 23 such threats Friday, adding that “it is reasonable to assume that hundreds more were posted prior to today.”
“Interestingly, the threats made today were posted exclusively by supporters of President Obama,” said the post. “We weren’t able to find even one Republican threatening to riot if Mitt Romney loses.”
It’s a federal crime to threaten to harm the president, which may be why the only assassination threats on Twitter are aimed at Mr. Romney should he win the election.
Examples posted Monday include Logan Medina’s tweet, “Do you know how many times people are gonna try to assassinate Romney if he wins — a lot.”
Not all Obama supporters are predicting doom in the event of a Romney win. Sarah Carlson, a volunteer in the Obama for America campaign’s office in Highlands Ranch, Colo., said she hadn’t thought about what she would do if her candidate were to lose.
Why? “He’s not going to lose,” she said.
• Valerie Richardson can be reached at vrichardson@washingtontimes.com.
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