TGIO - Thank God It's Over!

When I woke up on Wednesday morning, everything felt pretty normal.  I dressed as usual and headed to work via a stop at the bank drive-through.  But as I sat there with my car window down, waiting for the teller to cash my check, there was a quiet hush of peace that surrounded my car, as though there had been a subtle change in the force.  I’ve now had 72 hours with no robo calls and no political ads on TV.  It’s like heaven. Unless you live in a swing state like Ohio, you have no idea how it feels to be at the mercy, and experience the full wrath, of two opposing political parties attempting to lure the undecided to their side of the divide. 

It is interesting to note the news coverage in such a swing state as ours.  The Republicans accuse the media of left wing liberal bias.  The Democrats accuse the Fox network of right wing bias.  I stop to see my mother most days after work.  She resides in the memory wing of an assisted living facility.  They always have a huge flat-screen blaring out the news when I arrive.  The facility plays alternately Fox and ABC news.  I started paying attention to the ads that were running during that news hour.  On ABC news days, there would be a Romney ad, an Obama ad, a Josh Mandel ad, a Sherrod Brown ad, etc.  It was pretty much a back and forth thing, showing opposing ads with equal frequency.  On Fox days, it was Romney ad, Romney ad, Romney ad, Mandel ad, Rennaci ad, Romney ad, Obama ad.  This seemed to be repeated throughout the newscast.  It was pretty much 6 to 1 or 5 to 1 in favor of the Republican ticket.  The numbers speak for themselves as to media bias.

The snail mail and the phone calls were also skewed toward the Republican candidates.  Had I saved all the political ads that came in my mail each day, the stack would have been at least two feet high.  Again, I received three or four Republican ads for every one for the Democrats.  Even more annoying were the robo calls.  We were receiving six to 12 calls per day, with at least 75% from the Republican contingent.  In the last week before the election, we received a dozen or more calls per day.  Some days they were all Republican based.  Once in a while, there was an Obama call, generally from one of the unions.  A very small percentage of the calls were local candidates of both parties.  A friend told me his likelihood of voting for either presidential candidate would be inversely proportional to the number of calls received from the candidate.  Whoever called the most was out of luck.  And the Republicans pulled out all the stops.  I had calls from Mitt Romney, Ann Romney, Speaker of the House John Boehner, Clint Eastwood (who didn’t exactly make my day), Pat Boone, and countless other members who called on behalf of the RNC and its candidates.  

I cringe to think of the amount of money spent trying to get my vote.  But I’m not going to think about it anymore.  I’m so darn glad it’s over, I can’t begin to express my relief.  Interestingly, I believe that Mitt Romney would have had a real shot at winning were it not for his continual flip-flopping on the issues, his seeming lack of sincerity, his obvious disdain for those less fortunate (that pesky 47%), and his unwavering refusal to be honest and transparent on the troubling issues (such as his tax returns and not revealing any details of how he would accomplish his “plan”).  Now we, as a country, will be the audience to how the results of this presidential election play out.