Tuesday, Nov. 02, 2004
Election 2004: A day at the polls, posted at 3:00 p.m.
Epiphany in Baltimore has moved to epiphanyinbaltimore.blogspot.com I voted at around 9am today. Schools are closed on Election Day here (not in Michigan, though, so this was a new thing for me when I moved here), and I slept in until around 8 and then mosied on over. This is my first presidential election in Maryland, and the place was much busier than the governor's race in 2002 and the primary races last fall. I waited about a half hour, though, so I can't complain.It's tough for me not to feel inspired when I'm voting. The entire experience makes me proud to be American. I go there, and the crowd is as diverse as Maryland gets - about half black, half white, half young, half old. In the line over from me, two young black guys around age 20 are wearing those "Vote or Die" shirts that I find stirring (my students have been wearing them a bit, and I love to see it on them). Behind me, an old white guy with a cane is shakingly reading the newspaper while he waits. Right in front of me, a woman with Down's Syndrome is voting in her first election. I get to see the whole process of her instruction. A Republican and a Democrat both head over to the curtain, and both explain the rules to her together. Then, the curtain closes, and she comes out a few minutes later. It was pretty cool to see, and made me want to be a volunteer on Election Day. My one beef is not getting an "I Voted" sticker.
I voted for Kerry, Mikulski, Cardin, and O'Malley, and for all the ballot initiatives except one. All the judges came up clean of wrongdoings on my googling I had done when I got my practice ballot, so I voted for all of them. I wish I remembered the name of the judge who oversaw my suing trial last May, but I can't. He was really cool. Not that he really needed my support, since there were five candidates for five slots anyway.
I really think Kerry is going to win, and will be surprised, but not devastated, if he does not. As I said yesterday, I don't think this election is as crucial as others have been in my lifetime, most specifically the election of 2000. If Kerry, who I pretty much like and always was my second choice of Democratic nominees (after Wes Clark), does not win, then 2008 will have some interesting possibilities for the Presidency on both sides. Hillary Clinton, Tom Vilsack, Wes Clark, Howard Dean, and Evan Baih will all be around, and I genuinely like all of them. Richard Lugar, Mitt Romney, Chuck Hagel, John McCain, and maybe even Condolleezza Rice will be coming at the race from the right side, and all, I think, represent a change from the current closemindedness of the President's administration. So, all hope will not be lost if Kerry is not elected. I still hope Kerry wins, and think he will, but it's important for me, I guess, to realize that things will be okay either way. Maybe it's a defense mechanism, but I tend to think of it as optimism.
But, enough of that. After voting, I took advantage of the day off (my first in weeks except for Saturday, when I had to go to a wedding) to have an incredible workout at Bally's in Towson. I then drove over to White Marsh (after a trip to Trader Joe's, of course), where I did my cardio at that Bally's and then walked over to see a matinee of Team America. While I thought the puppets and sets were really cool and I chuckled to myself a couple of times, I found the movie intensely mediocre and almost left early. The humor was often far too obvious, at other times dated (making fun of "Pearl Harbor"?? Woah, there's a tough, daring topic) and the two best jokes (the "Fuck Yeah" song and the dick/pussy/asshole rant) were both repeated multiple times, dimming their effect. I laughed at the latter the first time, though, and the puppet sex and the vomit scene were both somewhat funny. Overall, though, I was disappointed. I wish I had seen Ray instead. Comedies are probably not a good type of movie to see alone for a matinee, anyway. Now, the movie will go down as another of the Davinci Code/My Big Fat Greek Wedding category of stuff that everyone else seems to like but I just find to be woefully mediocre and disappointing.
I'm heading over to a friend's house tonight at 8 to watch election coverage. He has cable and I'll be able to watch the Daily Show coverage at 10. Plus, it'll be nice not to be alone for such a big moment. I still remember where I was in 2000. Kevin Robinson and I were both in Snyder-Phillips Hall at MSU working as graduate assistants and Assistant Hall Directors of Residence Life while student teaching. Jenni and Erin both came over, I think, and we started off by doing shots whenever Gore won a state. I don't think it lasted very long, but I remember going to bed thinking that Gore had won it, but waking up every couple of hours in my fitful sleep to see that he had not. Kevin got married shortly after the year ended, and I haven't spoken to him in years and he never returned any e-mails. Jenni got married last June, and I just got a "We're not wasting any time" postcard from her saying that she's due to give birth the second week of January. And Erin and I are still close even if our respective schedules are a flurry of activity too brisk to take much of a break from.
And that's all I have to say about that. Go Kerry!