If my polling place, at Van Brunt and Wolcott, is anything to go by, Barack is looking good. It's usually a moribund place on election day, with the handful of voters outnumbered by a cohort of oversized twinkie-eating poll workers slumped at their petite desks, flowing over the edges of chairs built for elementary school students.
So imagine my surprise when, this morning, minutes ago at about 8:15, I found myself at the end of a line reaching out the door. I was wishing I had put on more than a sweater. Once told which booth to go to, I entered a gymnasium full of people, the line snaking around the basketball court, and people on cell-phones calling in to work to explain they might be late. I didn't see anybody rushing out the door in disgust and out of patience, either.
A heavy turnout is good for only one of the candidates in this election: the one I voted for. This is the first year I've heard Republicans talking about how conflicted they are, that if they do bother to go vote it will be a difficult choice between the lesser of two evils. That's how I used to talk, as recently as the elections in 2000. I suspect we are going to see unprecedented turnout today by our outraged citizenry. By people who are tired of being hated by the rest of the world, tired of being coerced into a paranoid state of fear, tired of being told they can't afford health care as billions are funneled to mercenary contractors in Iraq and to vast corporations, ostensibly operating in an arena of "free market competition."
"I've never seen it crowded like this up in here before," said a guy standing behind me in line. "But this is the year, this is the year."
No comments:
Post a Comment