Since there are eight million other places on the Internet where you can read observations about the election, I feel like I should blog about old sitcoms or places to get great pizza today. How about great pizza? A couple weeks ago when Len Wein and I flew back to Columbus for Mid-Ohio Con, we had a stopover in the Phoenix airport and we shared one of those Pizza Hut pizzas-for-one. Pizza Hut usually proves the rule that franchised pizza can never be great and can at best be just (barely) adequate. But they had this new four-cheese something-or-other — some kind of deluxe thing that cost a buck or two more — and it was darned delicious. If you're stuck in an airport, be on the lookout.
Well, that's about as much as I can write without discussing the election. News reports of long lines make me glad I voted early by mail…but because I did, I feel oddly non-participatory in what looks to be a historic, nation-changing day for this nation and maybe the world. Being in California, my vote for President is largely ceremonial but there's something stirring about going into a polling place, interacting with the precinct workers and your fellow voters. I almost think I'd enjoy standing in one of those long lines today. Note the "almost."
I sure hope the election is relatively clean. As disappointing as Gore's loss in 2000 was to some of us, I think it was even more disappointing that legitimate reports of voting irregularities were trampled and ignored and in some cases, treated like after-the-fact cheating attempts. No one whose guy won seemed to have the slightest concern that some citizens who had a right to vote (and a right to have those votes honestly counted) were denied their rights. It was like, "We won so quit your whining." It's tempting to wish that Republicans would experience the victimized side of that situation but it wouldn't lead to meaningful reform. It would just escalate the slap fight.
This is not something we can or should "get over." It's something we should fix. People should not be going to the polls today, as so many are, half-convinced their ballot will be stolen or that they'll vote for Obama and the machine will decide that one black guy's like another and tally another for Alan Keyes. We'd holler Bloody Murder and it would shut down our economy if ATMs counted our money as recklessly as votes are counted in this country. And the problem seems so fixable…if only we could get past the idea that the system is only broken when it doesn't deliver for you.
I've got to get some work done today so I can devote a lot of attention this evening to the election coverage. Enjoy whatever you can of all this…and if you haven't voted yet, today might be a good day to get it over with.