Election Day

It's Election Day.

I'm tired, like always, stressed, like always. A little bit sick, and I don't feel like going to bed. All surmountable, with regards to my writing an entry and getting one step closer to completing my thirty days.

But the fact that Paul Lepage is currently in the lead in the Governor's race...well that just makes one want to give up.

A few years ago, before the do-nothing congress and the culture wars, I considered myself independent. Liberal, of course, but someone who would be willing to hear out a politician of either side. Someone who believed that good ideas can come from anywhere.

Nowadays, it's just an all out war, and you're either one of us or you're one of them. Nowadays, I fill out my ballot by looking for the (D).

I like the idea of a political spectrum, with moderates on both sides and, you know, probably a few more political parties, to boot. I like the idea of being able to have a serious conversation with a fiscal Republican without wondering if they're secretly homophobic.

There are Republican ideas I can get behind: I think it's probably time to adjust the Social Security age. (That said, I would want the Medicare age lowered, or eliminated. I wish we all had access to Medicare.) I have a coworker who considers herself Republican who, though she hates Lepage, supports a law he enacted (proposed?) that mandates a food stamp recipient work at least a part-time job. She and I discussed it and I agreed that if they would accept volunteering in lieu of an actual job (as there may not actually be enough jobs), it's not an altogether bad idea. (I do acknowledge that it's more complicated than that, but I understand the point.)

Paul Lepage, though...I don't have the energy to talk about all the ways I hate him. All the ways...a lot of Mainers hate him. (I really want to say "most." But, at the moment, it looks like at least 48% of registered voters think he's just swell.)

The bitch of it is that his democratic opponent left a House seat to run, and that seat is now also looking like it will be lost. Which is a shame. I really liked the democrat running for it.


I'm going to go to bed now and hope the tables have turned in the morning.

Day 22. On with it.