My experience election day was interesting due to the fact that I was stationed outside all day and night at the little Democratic table 100 feet from the front door of the polls at an elementary school. At 7 AM it was 30 degrees and an onion skin of ice coated everything defying all my attempts to tape up any posters or cartoons that I made with the help of Staples' oversize printer.

There were a number of conversations, accusations and immutable truths that I encountered that day which, when viewed in retrospect, looked like a microcosm of politics nationwide.

Among several other chilly volunteers there was a career fireman there who eventually put on a coat only after I gave him mine which could not cover his massive chest. His job was to explain the Ambulance ammendment which would take the fees that always went to Insurance companies and give it to the county to pay for professional fire departments alone. When people would hear a Volunteer fire chief say vote NO and other fire chiefs say vote YES people naturally became completely confounded.

The professional fireman standing beside us at 7 AM looked like a clean shaven Haggred from Harry Potter as he kindly explained how the confusion was spread by Insurance companies that had given $5,000 to each Volunteer Fire Dept. to campaign against the ammendment and suggest that volunteer firemen and women would lose their job if they voted yes.

As we chatted and carped about this and that outside, occaisonally a family or couple would ask us for information. Several people asked for a teacher's union ballot but we were not allowed to have those flyers and it took 8 hours until Art Fable came by with some teachers union reccomendations. Meanwhile a soul Tea party supporter for a school board candidate was practically chasing people as they tried to dodge and dash away. She probably influenced 8 people to vote for her friend. She claimed to be fasting and praying until the polls closed which she finally accomplished at 8 PM.

I met a women Democrat who was as bold and brash as Joyce Behar who brayed intelligently about the issues but when she brought up her Hungarian ancestry and I mentioned the Romas, she was as reactionary as a McCain supporter cursing illegal immigrants.

A reporter from Isreal stopped by and asked our little band if there we had any knowldege of the Jewish vote or donations made to certain candidates. She was very curious on our take on the Tea Party. When she asked why I was a Democrat you can immagine how I answered in my own imitical long winded way.

I was chatting with someone about the right wing in Isreal when a neighbor said Obama doesn't get along with the Jews as well as Bush.
I tried to outline the issues and rift with Netanyahu when the guy said, "If Isreal were to send missles into Iran to blow up their WMD program, Obama would be on the phone to Tehran warning them!"
I was going to ask if he would do that because he is a traitor, Muslim or an African but instead I said, "thats too polarizing a statement for me to know what to say to you."

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But most interesting to me was how many times I heard Republican People trashing the basic social contract of our civilization by saying "I don't want to pay for my neighbor's ambulance". "I don't want to pay for your bridge". "I don;t want to pay for your health care". Sometimes they would go into to detail how often the diabetic neighbor across the St. would call for an ambulance he blamed his neighbor for not taking better control of the disease and wasting tax payer money. Even asthmatics came into the conversation when someone mentioned a teenage girl who partied and multiple ambulance calls a month.

When I challenged one man's objection to using tax money for the common good, he became very steamed. I said maybe you want to be the one to exclude them from the tax paying community and get rid of them with some sort of death panel ?! He smiled wryly and said "I like that".

Sure there were mostly well informed people of even temperment but there were damn few young people. In fact there was less than 10% young voters that day.

I am still suffering from a bad ear from the cold on that election day but body and soul are recovering, but more slowly and with less hope than a couple years ago.

I did not go to the Democratic election celebration at the Double Tree Hotel that night. I suppose I didn't want to be one of the happy losers knoshing light refresments as the House of Cards began to fall. It may not have been any better than whacking myself with a teapot.