Fear & Loathing in '08

Candidates, pollsters, and media-- oh, my! 

What a long season this has been already, with a little over three months yet to go. Like a roller-coaster, the dips and turns and whooshing swoops followed by the long, clanking climbs back up have been dizzying and occasionally entertaining. But in the end we are going to be stuck with the results, and I am fearful about that.

Neither candidate fills me with enthusiasm. I am very tired of having to vote every four years for the "lesser of two weevils." (Nothing personal, guys. You just don't inspire, OK?) We seem to have a choice between a Cranky Caretaker and a Precocious Cubscout. 

But one interesting outcome is how well the many different Americas that we  live with have been delineated. Well, I say they have been well delineated but you have to do a lot of between-the-lines work to get the picture. The media is not good at complex issues that cannot be encapsulated in a five second soundbite. We're a big, wonderful, great-hearted country, but we're also divided along many fault lines. Maybe that's a good thing. Maybe homogeneity ain't all it's cracked up to be.