OT - Finally!

[Phantom Warrior]

I've never been so glad an election is here. I am so sick of the ads and the phone calls, I could scream.

[IWB]

Good God it has been out of control. 8-10 voice mails per day for the past week. And yesterday they finally started blasting my cell phone.

The worst message? "Hey folks, this is Pat Boone. Ha ha ha ha, yeah, THAT Pat Boone...." Don't ask me what party he was calling for because I didn't wait long enough to hear.

Between the auto/robo-messages and the polls, my phones have had a workout. Like Seth Meyers said on SNL news.....

"President Obama is up 3 points on Mitt Romney in the latest poll taken from people who still answer their phones when caller ID says unknown caller."

[MKE_GoldenEagleFan]

It's not over till today is over... I went to work this morning to find that our server was down so I headed home to work from home this afternoon and I heard all the radio ads and people discussing it on the different channels, then when I got home there was a person outside going door to door to encourage people to vote and he came running towards me to catch me before I got inside... I wasn't the most polite to him as I told him to leave me alone several times as he followed me to my door.

I will be happy after this week when it's truly over...

[MU_Iceman]

I will only be happy when it's over if the right man wins. Otherwise, there's nothing to be happy about.

[ValiantSailor]

Yes, it's a bother.

And it's also the ONLY time you get a say in determining the political future of this country. That's an awesome responsibility. I'll tolerate the bother for that reward.

VS

[MKE_GoldenEagleFan]

I think going forward there needs to be regulation on just how much of this they can do, the amount of lies and fraud spread is just insane, and it's both parties. I will leave this up to people smarter than I, but this election was way over board. It almost makes me not want to vote out of spite (for the record I did vote), and I would be willing to bet there are people out there that stay away because they just don't want to deal with it all.

[MUMac]

I will only be happy when it's over if the right man wins. Otherwise, there's nothing to be happy about.

I agree with your comment, but I will be relieved that the advertisements and phone calls will end. We haven't answered our land line in 2 months. The benefit of that, though, is I have come to realize the only people that call on our land line are pollsters and fundraisers. Hmmm ... maybe it is time to get rid of the land line!

[Goose85]

Wisconsin is always a battle ground state - so we get hit and hit hard. With the number of phone calls I get it is borderling harrassment, and I love following politics. If anyone else called you 7 times a day for a month, my guess is you would put a restraining order on them.

I don't mind ads from the actual candidates, as they have to have some degree of truth. The problem is very few political ads I've seen are actually from the candidates. These special interests can say whatever they want in ads, and basically do. My kids even laugh at them knowing they aren't accurate, and they are just grade school and high school age, not voting age.

I'm sure it has been a real boom for the Wisconsin economy. TV and newspapers can now go back to barely surviving on ad revenue for another 3 years.

Enjoy election night and no matter who your candidate is, we can all put it behind us and cheer together for MU starting this Friday night.

My personal vote is for Buzz to remain as Head Coach at MU for at the very least four more years.

[CaribouJim]

I hope and pray that it does end tonight - that an Ohio doesn't become this year's Florida and things drag on for weeks. Don't think too many folks are in the mood for that.

[MUMac]

I hope and pray that it does end tonight - that a Ohio doesn't become this year's Florida and things drag on for weeks. Don't think too many folks are in the mood for that.

I would rather take an Ohio recount than a Wisconsin one. That would be awful to live through. Hopefully Waukesha County has it's stuff together!

[IWB]

I have spoken to friends in other states - Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota - not a single call, a commercial or two and that is it.

Here in the Milwaukee area we have been averaging about 10 calls per day, about $20 worth of junk mail each day and so many commercials that I can't watch tv anymore.

Yes, it is great that we have this process, but the state of Wisconsin is out of freaking control right now.

[Alan Bykowski, "brewcity77"]

Illinois and Minnesota are both locked up for Obama, while Indiana is virtually assured of going for Romney. We are getting calls because we're a battleground. I'm sure people in Ohio, Colorado, and Iowa are getting similar attention to us.

Thankfully, the only call I received today was from work telling me I got hired for overtime tomorrow :D

[unclejohn]

It does seem mostly to be the battle ground states, but I am informed that the airwaves in Chicago have been deluged by Congressional ads. Personally, I feel almost like I am on another planet. I do not have a land line, I have a cell phone nobody has cracked, and neither of my TVs has a HD converter box hooked up, so I never watch them. And to top it off, I voted a week ago. Nobody cares about me! Yay!

As Valiant points out though, this is not the worst problem to have. Around here, people who waited until Saturday to vote early had to wait for about four hours. I understand it was not that bad, as they were nice to each other and kept each other amused. No one had to hike through mud for eight hours to vote, and nobody cut off the fingers of people with indelible ink on them that proved that they did. The barrage of ads this year stems from two factors: The ever-increasing sophistication in figuring out where votes are coming from, and the Supreme Court decision that said that private groups could spend as much as they wanted on elections. In other words, this is a direct result of something some people have been clamoring for and fighting about in court for years. They finally got what they wanted. Perhaps there will be some legislative way to limit all that after this election. Perhaps not, since the Supreme Court has spoken. But the fact is, we got the system we asked for and deserve.

And regardless of who wins, the sun will come up tomorrow. Despite all the hype and all the people who claim otherwise, this is not the most pivotal election in American history. It pails in comparison to those of 1860 and 1864, for instance. Regardless of which candidate one prefers, the result will be decided soon, probably no later than tomorrow morning. Despite all the partisan complaints, there will be relatively little fraud, the winner will be chosen by legal means, armies will not go forth to either make sure the winner takes office or prevent him from doing so, no one will be hunted down and killed by either the government or the political parties themselves for voting for the wrong person, and the winner will be sworn in in January, once again minus riots, deaths, and persecutions. Many countries have never experienced that.