I am bad. I am not sure I have voted since the last presidential election. I know that there are folks reading this who will have absolute fits about that. One of them even works as an election supervisor or whatever it’s called. Why have I not voted? Well, first there was this fiasco, at the last midterm election. I found out later that there were a lot of people who had similar problems but that whole scenario was definitely not conducive to get a person with thinly disguised social anxiety to approach the polls.

That little incident began a period of sticking my head in the sand. 2006 was a pretty awful year in general. People were dying left and right. And then shortly after, I crash-landed into a career I wasn’t really looking for, straight from empty-nest-SAHM-studenthood. And this isn’t “oh poor me, I have such an awful life.” Because I don’t. I have a good life (knock on wood). But, for a few years, I was in re-invention mode and my brain was a little busy. It often seems that people who don’t know me very well think I am some sort of radical left-winger but that ain’t true. Exactly. Please y’all, don’t read toooooo much into the socks and sandals. I am an independent voter who doesn’t just pull one lever (so to speak, it’s been a long time since we’ve pulled levers) to vote a straight party ticket. Fiscal conservative, social liberal. It takes a lot of work to vote that way and I was just plain not up to it for a few years.

Okay. Hello. I am a bit more awake now. There is an election tomorrow. I am a day late and about 50 bucks short but I started researching candidates and parties this weekend. And I am so confused now, I don’t know who to vote for. For example. We are electing a new governor here in the Great Lake State this year. Our beautiful peninsulas continue to endure a huge state of flux as we struggle to reduce our dependence on the automotive industry. That struggle has been going on for many years and it will continue for many more. I think that the economy is the largest issue in this state although environment issues and education are right up there and, in my mind, go hand in hand with the economy.

When I [try to] read what the candidates have to say about the usual issues, it’s all gobblety-gook. They talk about what we need to do but they don’t seem to have a plan of action. And to me, it all sounds the same. Whatever the issues, the process my beautiful state is going through is going to take a long time. We need to retool a whole heckuva a lot of people so that they can do something other than work an assembly line or flip burgers or whatever and that’s gonna take more than just adding time to the school year or forcing kids into all-day kindergarten. (I actually don’t personally agree with adding more time to the school year or day although, as a parent, I remember many a time when I wished that my kids were at school more ;-).) We are in the middle of a huge cultural shift away from the days when a kid could graduate from high school and hire on at the GM plant across the street and earn enough to buy a house and a car and a truck and a motorboat to drag “up north”. Those were good times but we are beyond them and our shift into the future is going to take a while. No matter who’s elected, the state government cannot change things overnight.

One of my hot-button issues is choice. I am pro and, although I now see the issue in RGB rather than the black and white view I had before my own children were born, I will probably never change my overall stance. I was a teenager toward the end of the coat hanger days and I don’t want to ever go back there. The choice issue is not in the forefront for this election, at least not in my state, but it is still there and that plus the Christian conservatives who are working hard to usurp the GOP give me great pause to vote for any Republicans, even if I like the candidate. The GOP should take note that by pandering to Christian conservatives, they are alienating a whole heckuva a lot of middle-of-the-road voters. I’m sorry if anyone disagrees with me. We’ll have to agree to disagree.

I am going to try to do some more research tonight and, early tomorrow morning, I am going to hit the polls and do the best I can.

Whoever wins, I’m not expecting a whole lot of change.

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