election day

A crispy-crackly-blue-sky-cool Election Day here on the New England East Coast of the United States. Early voting, absentee and otherwise, has put the palpable lie to the idea that election day should be held on a Tuesday, a day that relates to the landed gentry for whom one day is much like the well-heeled next.

Unless I am alone, there is a sense of walking of egg shells about the contest between Donald Trump, the flamboyant real estate mogul who corrupts the truth with an impunity that would do a mafia don proud, and one-time secretary of state Hillary Clinton, whose fingerprints are all over the good ol' boy network the electorate hopes to mitigate. It has been a long slog with singularly little content attending on the bombast. People are depressed and crabby and yet don't want to make things any worse ... so keep your mouth shut, vote for whom you please and perhaps we can put this bad dream behind us. If the United States stands for anything, it is hardly a beacon of light. Too many people in too many ways feel that they have been somehow left out or left behind.

I voted early so there is simply the rest of the day to get through. Will things be more settled once the day has passed? I doubt it, and that is perhaps the most dispiriting aspect of the whole matter. Race, gender, flamboyant lies, crisp spin, environment, poverty, war, education, healthcare, hunger ... the list rolls on and on and in each appearance, the candidates are well-dressed and assured, but what they are assured of doesn't convince many.

It's ick, but with luck the bombast will abate a bit come Wednesday.

PS.

"I don't do spin"

[AP] Janet Reno, the first woman to serve as US attorney-general and the epicentre of several political storms during the Clinton administration, has died. She was 78.

Reno died early on Monday from complications of Parkinson’s disease. She spent her final days at home in Miami surrounded by family and friends, her goddaughter Gabrielle D’Alemberte said.
A former Miami prosecutor who famously told reporters “I don’t do spin,” Reno served nearly eight years as attorney general under President Bill Clinton, the longest stint in a century.

A big, horsy woman dripping integrity you might not agree with but couldn't deny.

Can I take my vote back and vote for her?