comments about voting and the election

two and a half hours.

that's how long i stood in line to vote yesterday.

yesterday morning, i had to go to the county seat for business. while i was there, i decided to vote because:

• i had read about people who had decided to vote early; some had to stand in line for more than an hour -- not just in indiana but all across the nation.
• i had nothing better to do except go home and listen to the indiana university football game. (the hoosiers, by the way, lost to central michigan 37-34.)

i got in line at 12:25 p.m. and cast my vote at 2:55 p.m. -- five minutes before the doors closed. and it was busy before i got there; i overheard an election official say conditions at the poll had been squirley since 7 a.m. , a hour before the polls opened.

yesterday, i thought it was because people wanted to make sure their votes counted for barack obama. but this morning, this thought hit me: they might want to make sure their votes for mccain and palin -- and against obama -- are counted and will matter.

as for me, i voted FOR obama -- and against mccain, the heir to the cheney/bush misadministration (and yes, you read that correctly).

i believe that the election will be a landslide win for obama. reports on the internet today predict that he will get at least 50.4 percent of the popular vote and 333 electoral votes. mccain, on the other hand, is predicted to get at least 43.6 percent of the vote and 181 electorial votes. the number of electoral votes needed to win is 270.

and indiana, surprisingly at this late date, is a tossup state. this is very strange, since the last time this state voted for a democrat for president was in 1964, choosing lyndon johnson over barry goldwater.

it will be very, very strange if indiana elects a black man to be president. okay, he's half black. but for many people in this state, one-sixteenth black is totally black.

and things will become very, very interesting tuesday and afterwards.