One more day

Election day is tomorrow and my hope is that anyone reading this has or will be voting in this election. Let this election be a mandate of our whole society – the disenfranchised, the usually ambivalent, the rabid tree-huggers and the religious zealots. The misinformed and the pundits. The intellectual "elites" and the illiterate. I want to know – whoever wins this election – that there isn't a question about 'stolen' votes. I don't want another supreme court deciding who is President. I want the voice of this country to be heard throughout the electorate.

I want to believe that the majority of people in this country can see through the bullshit of negative campaigning and fear mongering that has been going on. I want to believe that the majority of voters can overcome racial prejudices to vote for the man they think can best lead us towards viable solutions to the problems of the 21^st century. I want to hold to the ideal that as a democracy we truly do want to have separation of church and state. I want to believe that the desire to solve the problem of global warming is not a minority view in this country. I want to know that as a nation we recognize the disproportionate distribution of wealth in this country – that 'trickle down' economics doesn't work within the confines of individual greed. Money doesn't trickle down – it buys more mega-yachts. I want to believe that the majority of people in this country understand that taxation is not a bad word – it is the price of living in a civilized country.

I am an optimist today because anything else is too depressing. Although I often feel fairly cynical about the political world in which we live, I would like to know that the fundamental ideals of this country are still there – even if they are used and tattered. I'm old enough to accept compromise and understand that our government hardly works the way our founding fathers had altruistically hoped (who would have foreseen what lobbyists could do?). But there is one fundamental truth that gives me hope: We get to vote tomorrow and change the course of this country. We do not live under a military dictatorship or other form of government that gives its people no voice in what it does. Our government is accountable to the people and it is my dearest hope that tomorrow will be the final nail in the coffin of George Bush's presidency.