After the conventions

I'm beginning to think that the best method for evaluating our national circus (otherwise known as the presidential election) might be the same process used in rating other competitive enterprises: collect the scores, throw out the highest and the lowest, then average the middle ones. That way, we could just ignore all the over-the-top shenanigans (Sarah Palin's speech, for one), throw out all the low blows (but who's counting?), and whittle things down to reality-level.

Accept the fact that (thank God) our system of checks and balances won't permit the fulfillment of the more outrageous promises/consequences and believe that the American public won't fall totally for the exaggerations, misrepresentations, and downright lies that people tell (and the media reports) while under the influence of the convention spotlights. No candidate is a savior, and no candidate is the devil incarnate. Lord knows, we've had some bad actors in government, and politics can generate some pretty reprehensible behavior--but, somehow, we've managed to hold things together for a couple centuries with this system of ours. No matter who is elected, life will go on; perhaps not in the way we want it to, perhaps not without some serious bumps in the road, but on, nevertheless.

I'd like to believe that when I go into the voting booth in November, there will be millions of others like me (and certainly millions of others NOT like me) who will be listening to their own consciences, their own values (if the Republicans haven't damaged that word for all time), and their own beliefs, and will be voting for the people who are most closely aligned with their own views. I'd like to think that when the voting is done, all those millions of people will accept the results and continue to work and be involved in the governmental processes that allow even the minority to have a voice in how this country operates. That is, after all, the way this is all supposed to work.