Election Day Rambles

I can't believe how excited and antsy I am today. I'm in a very good mood, which isn't all that unusual for me, but I know it's because it's election day. Kinda weird feeling for me.

Part of it, I know, is just that I'm excited to get this whole thing over with - especially considering how inundated with political ads and news I've been over the past couple of weeks. I am sooooo looking forward to being done with all those horribly negative senate ads.

In case you don't know it, the number and ferocity of ads for the senate race far outweigh anything for the presidential race.

For the most part, though, I'm really optimistic about the direction I think the country's turning in. At the same time, I'm terribly, horribly worried that McCain will win. Not so much because I feel he would be a terrible president, but mostly because I feel like he wouldn't be the right president for us right now. And I'm not even going to talk about Palin.

I know I read somewhere lately that this is some sort of chronic condition for democrats - lots of enthusiasm and hope, and this dreadful nagging worry that we're going to lose. (Hmm....I guess that 'we' means I am thinking of myself as a democrat - even though I tend to define myself as a liberal independent. Might have to think about that.) I definitely have that same tendency today - and I can hardly wait for the day to be over, because, really, I just want to know. I haven't even voted myself yet (I'll be stopping on the way back from work), and yet I keep on checking CNN and fivethirtyeight.com and other news sites, hoping they'll say something different than they did 5 minutes ago.

Of course, my big plan for tonight is to watch Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert's election coverage tonight - I'm sure I'll be checking 'official' news sources, too, but I'm really going to want the levity tonight, not matter how the election is going.

What's also kinda weird about all of this is that I know a lot of people will be paying more attention to Minnesota tonight than they usually do - not because of the presidential election, of course, but for the senate race. No one seems to know who's going to win that one. It feels very weird to see Minnesota popping up in the last minute races-to-watch news reports. Of course, Montana and North Dakota probably have the same sort of bewildered feeling - honestly, who would have ever expected them to be battleground states today? True, they probably won't decide the election, since they've only got 3 electoral votes each, but it is kinda exciting to see different states than usual getting some attention today. (I sound like I pay attention to politics all the time - and I've really only cared this year. Wonder if it'll carry over after this.)

You know, I'm beginning to wish I'd gotten up insanely early and voted as soon as the polls opened - I think I'd be slightly less nervous.

Also, I want a way to make time speed up today - the only thing that's worse than being this keyed-up today is that I have nothing to distract me at work. It already feels like a long day, and I've only been at work for an hour and a half.

Actually, I think I'm going to go clean things - I have to do something with all this nervous energy!