I am just back from voting as I write this, my beard and moustache still damp from the dense, clingy fog that I had to ride my trail bike through to and from the polling place at our local library.
The fog was a fitting backdrop considering how surreal this presidential primary campaign has been, from the resurrection of an elderly Republican maverick repeatedly given up for dead to the improbable quest of a middle-aged Democratic crusader who has caught lightning in a bottle and managed to keep the lid on.
This is the most important election of my lifetime, primary or general. I was only a couple of weeks short of being old enough to vote in another election fraught with great import — a 1968 Democratic primary when Eugene McCarthy challenged President Johnson over his stewardship of another failed war.
By far the largest applause – in fact a mighty roar of approval – that Barack Obama received when I saw him speak last weekend was when he said that no matter what happens, the names George Bush and Richard Cheney will not be on the ballots in November.
This makes the process of going about choosing who is on the ballot all the more important. If you’re registered in a Super Tuesday state, please vote today.