Ok Folks. It’s all come down to today. Forgive me for not really having many words. I am very busy wringing my hands and muttering to myself. And desperately trying to remember to breathe. I’m am grateful to have voted already because I can’t possibly imagine having to truly function today. But I will, of course. I will distract myself with writing that needs to be written and playgroups that must be played at. While I rock my Obama T-shirt proudly, I will ogle the voters that are already lined out into the parking lot up the road from here. On my way to kindergarten pick-up, I will drive past the fields of campaign signs that seem to have sprung up overnight. And I will over hear those conversations in the grocery store line: “Whats the difference between Barack HUSSEIN Obama and Osama Bin Laden? They both know someone that bombed our country… har har har.” And I will keep my mouth shut. Because today it’s time for this country to quiet down, focus and finally decide who they want in charge. The majority will tell us which direction we are headed next.
Make your voice part of the majority.
Please vote today.
Deep breaths.
I’ll be back to talk to you on the flip side…
I am facinated by bumper stickers. I always have been. I can’t help but look to see what people have to say, what they believe in and what they choose to support publically as they drive around town. It’s no suprise then that I have a few bumper stickers of my own. Lots of people I know don’t like bumper stickers, they argue that they are even unsafe since they give away a lot of personal information. But, well, I just couldn’t help myself. My car is hardly very flashy as is, so I see no harm in spicing her up with a little bling.
However, my facination with bumper stickers has been fanned and ignited from a mild interest to a full blown obsession with this election. You see, I live in a suburb in Florida that is kind of a big deal right now. According to the polls, it is still one of the fewer areas in Floirda that they cannot predict for this election. And our state overall is still on the fence as to which way it will go. So depending on how my neighbors vote, the results for this county might actually help determine whether we become a red or blue state tomorrow. The people driving in the cars all around me could help decide who our next president will be. So when I started seeing campaign stickers plastered on the backs of cars in my area, I couldn’t help but take notice. I was literally seeing who these drivers will vote for.
Last September, I started a little poll in my car. Since about the second week of that month, I started keeping track of every Obama and McCain bumper sticker that I saw. I was curious to see if my poll might reflect the polls for our state. Plus it helped me feel like I could have some sort of “heads up” about which way the area I lived in was voting. I was curious if I was the only Obama supporter for miles. It turns out I’m not.
I should also note here that I didn’t count any signs or other parphenalia that I saw. (Until recently, the large majority of signs were for McCain.) And I tried to be very careful never to count the same car twice. (For instance, kindergarten pick up means seeing many of the same cars everyday.) And even if a car was covered in Obama stickers, it was only counted once. I also continued my poll if I drove out of my area. I drove to Orlando twice during my poll and counted the stickers I saw. I am not sure how scientific my methods were but, for the last month and a half, I have been on hyper bumper sticker alert, hunting down stickers at every traffic light, traffic jam and parking lot I found myself at.
And now – cue drum roll – a day away from our national presidential election, I would like to present you with my results.
Total cars with bumper stickers: 114
Obama bumper stickers: 62 (54%)
McCain bumper stickers: 52 (45%)
It looks like Obama won, right? Well, I should also tell you that I attended an Obama meeting and counted 9 stickers there (I am sure there were more but thats as many as I actually saw). So, if I hadn’t attended that meeting, Obama would have only won in this poll by one bumper sticker.
So what does it tell me? Of the sample of cars I saw during my drives around town daily, the polls reflect pretty much what I saw. Elections results for this area of Tampa are going to be very CLOSE tomorrow.
And now, back to wringing my hands and hoping all goes well tomorrow. But before I go, I am kind of into this polling thing recently. Who are you voting for?
[polldaddy poll=1071805]
Stumble It!
For Local Blog
