I was talking with some friends earlier today when I noticed you were asking residents of swing states to offer their thoughts on what it’s like during a presidential election. We looked at each other and said, “It’s worse than waterboarding.”
I am a lifelong Ohio resident, if you forget the year I followed my inner flower child to San Francisco. I have not been particularly political and, as a journalist for 30 years of my life, studiously avoided politics in an active sense. It’s impossible to avoid politics as an editorial writer. My boss would tell you I had an unfortunate tendency to drop off in the middle of candidate interviews. Couldn’t help it. Something about my inner bullshit detector turning the lights off.
But as a civilian and a voter, swing-state politics ain’t pretty. I believe passionately in voting. I have absolutely no use for people who say the system is corrupt and we’re just encouraging the same old, same old by dutifully going to the polls every election cycle. Women died for my right to vote, and I’m not going to let them down.
I hate living in Ohio during a presidential election. As Election Day gets closer, my garbage can chokes with campaign literature, my phone rings nearly incessantly with robocalls. This year will be a test of my subscription to No Mo Robo.
The most odious aspect of this is that everyone thinks I want to hear something bad about his/her opponent. I can be as cynical as the rest of the curmudgeons, but I try to live my life as if there’s hope for the future. If every candidate says their opponent is a sleazebag, the future doesn’t look so promising to anyone, does it? Enough of what you’re against. What the hell are you FOR!?!
And THIS year. . . Egad, I shudder to think what’s going to come oozing out of my mailbox over the next 8 weeks. I am a registered Democrat, much to my rock-ribbed Republican family’s horror. Still, and especially after spending years watching politics from the seats afforded the Fifth Estate, most often my politics run to the “Pox on all their houses” variety. Ain’t no saints nowhere.
This year, however, is different. Not only is the choice for president crystal clear, I am hoping that the GOP loses everything. No organization with that much money will ever cease to exist in American politics, but it deserves an electoral shutout for what it has done to the party of Lincoln. I once voted in a Republican primary because I wanted to vote against George Bush. Now, on occasion, a missive follows that failed attempt. I dread that some Trump literature might find its way into my mailbox. Rest assured it will never find its way into my home.