Soldier Ant 

Midmorning today, we left to cast our votes. The excitement and tension in Columbus is palpable (Bush was here yet again even today.) But the mood at the polling place was light and friendly. Chairs were brought out to sit on. Places were held for those who needed to duck out for a bite to eat. Kids were holding a bakesale. It still took us 2 hours to get through the line. It was worth it.

Check out my quick photo-essay of our swingstate election experience on Flickr.

The editors of The Stranger point out that the Red-v-Blue State race really has nothing to do with states, per se: It's the Cities, Stupid:

Take a look at the second map. This map shows a county-by-county red/blue breakdown, and it provides a clearer picture of the bind the Democrats finds themselves in. The majority of the blue states--Washington, Oregon, California, Illinois, Minnesota, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Delaware--are, geographically speaking, not blue states. They are blue cities.

Look at our famously blue West Coast. But for the cities--Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego--the West Coast would be a deep, dark red. The same is true for other nominally blue states. Illinois is almost entirely red--Chicago turns the state blue. Michigan is almost entirely red--Detroit, Lansing, Kalamazoo turn it blue. And on and on. What tips these states into the blue column? Their urban areas do, their big, populous counties.

It's time for the Democrats to face reality: They are the party of urban America. If the cities elected our president, if urban voters determined the outcome, John F. Kerry would have won by a landslide. Urban voters are the Democratic base.

Here's a fantastic collection of photos of an angry, scowling Condoleeza Rice. Grrr!

"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter, and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves." (Abraham Lincoln, 1809-65)

Fantastic, deep-reaching essay by Paul Graham on Hackers, the last American heroes:

When you read what the founding fathers had to say for themselves, they sound more like hackers. "The spirit of resistance to government," Jefferson wrote, "is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it always to be kept alive."

Imagine an American president saying that today. Like the remarks of an outspoken old grandmother, the sayings of the founding fathers have embarrassed generations of their less confident successors.

A baby-faced Kiefer introduces his grandfather's (onetime Canadian premiere Tommy Douglas) Mouseland, an animated illustration of how, politically, we are all screwed.