Election Day

Well election day has come and is going.  And unless I can figure out some way to get my absentee ballot from Washington to California by 7pm, I will have missed my opportunity to cast my vote yet again.  Part of me feels bad about this, but the bigger part of me feels that I can enjoy my right not to vote just as much as someone else does the opposite.  Reasons why I did not vote:

1. I don't enjoy our political system or at least as far as I understand it.
2. I really really don't enjoy the media coverage.
3. I feel like my vote doesn't count, at least in the states that I have lived in to this point.
4. I did one of those who should you vote for based on the issues sites and they said I should vote for Gary Johnson.  I don't know who that is.
5. I didn't have time to study the issues enough to make good choices.
6. Of the two main guys running for president, I like them both and I think that they both have the best intentions for our country.
7. Whoever wins, I think I will still be okay.  I may end up paying a little more in taxes, or having a few less freedoms, but I'm okay with that. And if someone else feels more strongly that their lives will be better off by voting one way or another, then I don't want my ambivalent vote to counteract their need.
8. Joe Biden and Paul Ryan.  Being one impeachment, assassination or one heart attack away from having these guys be our commander in chief is actually really scary.  I wouldn't mind hitting the gym with Ryan or having Biden over for spaghetti but I can't confidently say that I would feel safe, or respected as a country with one of these guys at the helm.

What ticket would compel me to vote?  Obama/Romney... as in Michelle/Ann.  Hillary can keep her job and I'd like to see Laura Bush with a fantastic appointment as well.  Oh and Jill Biden too. I am a fan of all of these ladies.

(just of interest Michelle's outfit Michael Kors ($3290), Ann's Oscar De La Renta ($1690))

Things about the election season that I did enjoy:

1. PBS Frontline's documentary on the candidates: The Choice

2. The Alfred Smith Foundation's Catholic charity dinner and the speeches/roasts given by Romney and Obama. If you can find the whole thing in its entirety, it's worth a watch.  

3. Obama's line about the fewer horses and bayonets.  It didn't exactly speak to what Romney was saying, but it was funny. 

4. That Billy Graham influenced the decision to take Mormons off of the cult list on it's website. If for political reasons or whatever it's a good move.  

I don't think I will be apolitical my whole life.  Someday I will make more time for the issues and for activism.  In fact, next year I will be old enough to run for president myself if I want to.  But I will never want to.  Maybe mayor of a small town, but never president. And I did vote for our hometown school board last year.  That is important to me. 

As far as other people in the household...I know Ben didn't vote because his ballot is in a stack of miscellany next to the bed, and I think he feels neutral as I do.  Avery, on the other hand reported that she "voted" for Romney today in her class vote.  I was actually quite surprised since she has probably never heard Ben or I speak in defense of one candidate or the other.  I thought maybe she had heard that Romney was Mormon and identified with him somehow that way.  Nope.  Her reasoning - because "I think everyone should get a chance to be president if they want to."