Now A Family of *gulp* Six.

Doug voted this morning and waited an hour. Got in line at 6:40am and didn't get out until 7:30. I myself ended up going at lunchtime (big mistake!) and waited 1.5 hours. I didn't want to risk standing in line with Roman for who-knows-how-long, so not too bad - took a book and enjoyed the company of my precinct neighbors. Ro had a babysitter. On Monday my students and I looked at sample ballots and talked about how to cast a ballot. The kids were pretty amazed at how much was on it - I'm sure they figured it was president and maybe senators, and that would be it. We laughed a bit about "pick no more than 18" judges and that sort of thing, but one comment made by a kid cracked me up. He first stared at me incredulously and said, "how do you guys know what to do?" I said that an intelligent voter would listen, perhaps do research, and know what they felt strongly about and choose a candidate that was aligned with their beliefs. His second comment was, ...

I'm going to say it. Here's the trouble: George Stephanopoulos told me in an interview how to choose a candidate to vote for. "Pick the top 3-4 issues that concern you most. Figure out how you feel about them. Then vote for the candidate that most closely aligns with your beliefs." Now that pretty much settles things. As one of my coworkers said, "I can't decide who to vote for - the person I like, or the party that I agree with." And that's where I have been. While McCain is just fine, I like the idea of Obama. I like his youth, his "change" theme, how he has gotten the young'uns interested in politics again. We needed someone to spark passion, & McCain doesn't spark passion in me. But I'm a Republican at heart. I drive down the middle most days, and I even cross the line into the left every few issues. And I'm apparently one of these people . It's not a fluke, people - I'm a white moderate Republican woman who ...

I have a love-hate relationship with election season. I love watching it unfold, but I hate the tv ads. I love deciding who to vote for, but I hate the media for trying to influence me (and you know they do!). I have to teach about it, on top of everything else, so I try not to get too involved early on. I am very apathetic this year, yet at the same time excited to participate in such an election. For the first time in my life, I am truly torn about who to vote for (yes, Dad, I admit it! Don't shun me!). I have noticed that having kids has changed my views on a lot of issues, and not all in one way. For example, we here in MI will be voting about stem cell research on human embryos. I used to support it, until I had Charlie. Now I am against it. For education, I lean left. For foreign policy, I lean right. For "family values" I used to lean right, now I'm kind of in the middle depending on the specifics. Regarding the environment, I go left. Regarding health care, I ...