Post Election Ponderings

Now that it’s finally over, I have a bunch of questions about the election, and elections in general. Of course, I realize that worldwide I only have about 8 readers, so I don’t know how much effect this will have. But here goes.

Now that the election is over, can we just stop being babies for a few years, and actually live and work together? Can we possibly finish 2008 before we worry about whether Palin’s coming back in 2012 (and what she’ll be wearing in 2012 and who’s going to pay for it)? Can we maybe impose a law that no one can talk about the 2012 election until around January of 2012? Wouldn’t it be cool if a candidate called the Election Office to file candidacy sometime in 2010, and a recorded message answered and said, “The Election Office is closed and will not accept candidacy filings until January of 2012, so hang up the stupid phone and get back to your actual life?”

Can we finally realize that the people who peak long before the election rarely win the actual election? Two years ago, Hillary was a sure thing; now, she’s irrelevant. Two years ago, Obama was interesting, but few thought he’d get past the primaries. Now he’s practically Ghandi, Kennedy, Mother Theresa and Abraham Lincoln combined into one (which will all change in about one year).

Can we devise a system of voting that’s the same in every state, in every precinct? Why do we have to have precincts? On election day, the school where I worked also served as a precinct for that neighborhood. But I couldn’t just go into that room and vote, because that’s not my precinct, even though I actually had to go into that area several times that day to use that restroom. Why couldn’t I just vote in the restroom, since I was already going to be pulling another lever anyway? So I had to wait until the end of the day, in the last hour before the polls closed, to have time to go to my own precinct 4 miles away. Can’t we computerize the voting thing, so that you can just take your ID to ANY polling place in your state and vote there?

For that matter, if we can order books, do banking, go to traffic school and even file tax returns online, why can’t we just stay home and vote online? Come on – you have to admit that our voting system is primitive, and it’s pretty goofy that some states were still counting ballots days later.

Can Obama just once slip out of his eloquent speaking style and talk like a real brother? At a press conference, it would be fun to hear things like, “Man, I already axed the CIA director to lemme get a briefing!”

Now that this Rahm Emmanuel guy is going to be Chief of Staff, does that mean that at Christmas all the other White House staffers will gather around his desk and sing, “Oh Rahm, oh Rahm Emmanuel?”

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