The Results Are In

I said this was not a political blog and I was sincere. But it would seem an egregious oversight to completely ignore yesterday's presidential election to discuss cheeseburgers, esoteric internet searches, movie trivia, or first lines from twenty year old novels.

So, whether you feel Bushwhacked or Kerried-away, the results are in and we have four more years of President Bush. No hanging chads or drawn out legal battles to get caught up in this time, at least not in any way that will change the outcome.

In our household, the results also seemed to be split as close to 51% to 49% as five individuals can possibly come (I'll leave the math as an exercise for the reader). What surprised me was how interested the boys suddenly became in the election on November 2, after barely any discussion before that. I'm still not sure what was said at school, especially during their library visit, but they came home eager to discuss the election and willing to debate the merits of each candidate.

I discussed this with several other parents last night whose elementary school kids were also coming home with pronouncements like "Bush is a murderer" or "John Kerry doesn't care about protecting our soldiers." One wonders exactly what transpired in the classrooms and on the playgrounds.

The biggest family surprise for me was Kevin who was willing to forego Cartoon Network yesterday to watch the election coverage. He sat cross-legged on the sofa with his arms folded behind his head and periodically called out the results from another state. I believe it was the arithmetic, the statistics, that most appealed to him, and also the competition. But it was odd to see him as engaged as he was watching the baseball playoffs. (Gotta get that boy a baseball stats software package soon.)

Justin was eager to talk about the election, and seemed especially interested in knowing how mommy and daddy had voted. No surprise there.

Then there's Andrew. He was so wrapped up in needing to know the election results that he wandered into our room at 4 a.m. He wasn't as worried about Bush vs. Kerry though. He was more concerned about the class election to determine a cartoon character president from a four candidate run-off among Oscar from Shark Tale, Scooby Doo, Hubble from Good Boy, and the big fat chicken from his buddy Matthew's latest story. (Remember the boy I inspired? Still writing.) Eventually Andrew returned to his bed and this morning was the last to wake up. It was easy to get him ready on time though: we just had to remind him about his class election.

Those results, however, are not yet in.