I hate presidential election days.
I don’t want to follow the results on Fox News’ interactive map, but I can’t seem to keep away from it. And since we’re informed every year that it’s a shoo-in for the party I don’t subscribe to, I watch the map changes with a sense of dread. That dread hasn’t been justified for the last few cycles, but this year… I think it’s gonna be a squeaker. I wouldn’t at all be surprised if it ended up in the courts again. Obama may win, but I’m convinced it won’t be any blow-out. Call on me to eat crow tomorrow, if I’m wrong.
I voted bright and early this morning, in a crowded church vestibule with about a hundred other people, all winding around each other in six distinct but sinuous lines. The people in charge did a remarkable job, I think, in keeping some kind of order. We vote on paper ballots with those little Iowa Basic Skills ovals in this state. When it got to my turn in line, the volunteer told me the electronic ballot marker machine was available, “But it takes a little longer.” I figured that way I’d free up a booth for somebody else, and I planned to skip most of the judge races anyway (it only encourages them), so I used it. I think I figured it out.
I preferred that to standing and marking my ballot on a clip board, or sitting on a folding chair at a folding table, which a lot of people were doing rather than wait for a booth. I have this quaint idea that voting ought to be private.
If my guy doesn’t win, I promise to pray for wisdom for the other guy. I trust you will too.
But if you live in the west and haven’t voted, get out there and make that unnecessary!
Unless you’re voting for somebody I don’t like, of course.
Update: You know, with the proper blend of herbs and spices, crow might taste OK.
Update to Update: No. No, it doesn’t.
We’re an extremely strong country. Even if Obama is as bad as we’ve expected, we’ll be able to survive him.
I worry more about people who rely on the US elsewhere. Can Israel by itself stop Iran from getting atomic bombs? Can the new Iraqi regime protect itself?
I may become poorer as a result of an Obama presidency. I can live with that. But there are others whose necks are on the line.
Frankly, I think it’s worse than that. I think we’ve turned a corner as a culture. I think the idea of America as a nation under the God of Abraham has died. I think the results will be catastrophic, long-term. I think… ah, I haven’t the heart to go into it all today.
There is this comfort–that I’m usually wrong. But I think my record in predicting long-term currents of history is pretty good.
Aborted babies still don’t grow up to vote as their parents taught them. Obama’s kids will be outvoted by Palin’s.
I don’t think God is anywhere near done with us.
Ori, please! We have survived the last 8 years and are, at the moment, certainly poorer and way deeper in debt than we were at the start. Surviving an Obama presidency will be a piece of cake.
Tom, I hope you’re right and we won’t see the level of government involvement in the economy that makes Israel (to pick one example) so inefficient.