and the winner....will be decided in a couple of weeks.

I voted today.

I usually vote early and I had to vote absentee anyway, so we just knocked it off the list while we were downtown.

Now, I have been voting for only two years longer than I have been working professionally in politics. You might say it is sort of important to me.

Daughter has been voting three times that she can remember and a couple more times when she was a baby. I have a picture of her when she was three months old with an I Voted Today sticker on her onesie and a pacifier in her mouth.

We voted again today. She understands that we fill in the circles next to the name of the person we want to elect. She personally knows three of the four people that we voted for. We were at a fundraiser for one of them last night. She goes to preschool with his kids. Two years ago I ate Thanksgiving dinner at his house.

I think you all know how she feels about Barack OMAMA! His was the only name on the ballot that she couldn't say she had held hands with or waved signs with or visited in their office.

As soon as we left the polling place (in City Hall) she said. "Mom, we need to put are buttons back ON NOW. " And then she proceeded to tell everyone she saw, including the former Lt. Governor and the President of the University of Alaska that she voted for Barack Obama today and voted for Ethan Berkowitz (Whoa-oooo-oh!) and for Mark Begich and for "Bethtulla".

I am wildly optimistic this year. It sort of freaks me out. I think I might take at least two of the candidates I voted for. For major offices. I don't quite know what to say about that. I'm a democrat in a red, red state. A state so red that we produced this monster. And yes, I am very, very sorry. I worked my ass off (quite literally) two years ago to keep her out of office, so it is less my fault than those dumb bastards who voted for her, but still. I apologize.

I also don't quite know what to say when I find myself identifying with the depiction of my political self written by the bow tie guy.

Politics in this state are fucked. Have been for a long, long time. The governor got elected promising ethics reform. She got a new ethics law passed without much effort and then proceeded to BREAK HER OWN ETHICS LAW. The current governor was found guilty of abuse of power by an independant investigator hired after a unanimous vote by the bi-partisan legislative governing body. A second investigation in on going. On going by a bunch of people she also has the power to fire.

The current governor, is of course also the current GOP Vice Presidential Nominee. I can proudly say that I have never, nor will I ever, vote for her. I could give you about a thousand reasons why, but I think this says it about as well (and far more humerously) as I could. Enjoy!