Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Post Traumatic Stress

With the election just one week away, I find myself feeling anxious.

The fun and games of SNL spoofs of Sarah Palin are over for me. It's serious now.

Polls that show Obama leading in several battleground states don't ease my mind.

I don't trust the polls. I don't expect the electoral process to be fair. New voter registrations are being challenged; there may be long lines again, discouraging voters.

Whether it's paper ballots with chads or electronic machines, I don't trust Florida, Ohio, and other states to count votes fairly.

The trauma of November 2000 has scarred my mind: will Democrats again have a legitimate victory stolen from us by miscounting and by judicial decisions?

Will the trauma of November 2004 be repeated? Learning about the problems in Ohio was a nightmare: too few polling places in Democratic precincts near colleges, bad weather, too few machines, long lines, polls closing against would-be voters.

Will we wake up on November 5 to face four more years of Republican misleadership of our nation?

This final week feels like a zone of PTSD to me.

We have to steer through it somehow, but I for one will be wearing protective ear muffs, goggles, and a news-proof vest.

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