Here we are...Election Day, 2006. I know for a lot of folks, the best part of today will be that, starting tomorrow, no more election ads. They will be replaced by holiday gift/sale commercials. I hear that Tickle-Me Elmo may be going negative against Mr. Potato-Head:

Deep, serious, concerned voice with just a touch of disgust:
"According to published reports, Mr.
Potato-Head has appeared in public
without his nose and ears. Don't
your children deserve a toy that
is ALL THERE...ALL THE TIME?"

"For years, Mr. Potato-Head
smoked a pipe. He claims he
didn't inhale. Didn't inhale? If
that's true, explain why he has
been spotted with his eyes in
his ear holes and vice versa.
Face it. This Spud's a Dud!"

On the other side, the Mr. Potato-Head supporters are insisting Elmo is just a puppet of the special interest groups. Well, I hope it doesn't get that ugly.

Personally, I will sort of miss all the political ads. Then again, I belonged to the "Root Canal Club" in high school. Truth is, I like politics. When I was growing up, our family was quite fond of the Kennedy's. It wasn't a party or policy deal. It really just grew from the fact that my grandma once spotted JFK crossing a street in Milwaukee. He was still a senator at the time and my grandma thought he looked like a fine young man. From that beginning, we started to think of ourselves as sort of a cheesehead version of the Kennedy's. Of course, you had to imagine the Wisconsin River being Hyannis Port, our leaky fishing boat being a yacht and our Fargo-esque accents sounding like a Harvard-educated speech pattern. Occasionally, we would try to imitate their famous touch-football games but it is hard to catch a long bomb when you have a bratwurst in one hand and cheese curds in the other.

In grade school, a friend of mine and I tried to get other kids interested in the 1968 presidential election. We chose to support Hubert Humphrey instead of Richard Nixon based solely on the fact that the design we came up with using the three H's of Humphrey's name looked cooler than the initials from Nixon's. Years later, my friend and I thought we might end up on Nixon's infamous enemies list...well, the junior list.

I always had a fascination with presidential politics. While other kids in high school had that famous Farrah Fawcett in the red swimsuit poster on the wall, I had a poster featuring all the presidents and most of them were fully clothed. The two exceptions were Chester Arthur who had insisted on wearing bikini briefs and Warren G. Harding in a very tasteful two piece. Actually, truth be told, I did have that famous Farrah Fawcett poster, too. But mine was the little known and rarely seen version of her holding the Constitution behind her back.

I wrote to Lyndon Johnson when I was about five, giving him my advice on how to get out of Vietnam. I got a very nice letter in return from his secretary and several autograph cards. I also wrote to Presidents Nixon and Carter in later years. The Nixon White House sent me a cool picture book about the White House...who knew that years later, there would be sort of a "Books-On-Tape" version. From the Carters I got a "History of Washington DC" pamphlet which included a 25 cents off coupon for Billy Beer.

In the 1980 race between Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter and John Anderson, I was part of a national news story. At the time, I was living in Las Vegas and got a call from CBS News, the night before the election, asking who I planned on voting for and why. I told the caller I'd be happy to answer the question but only if Walter Cronkite got on the line and asked me personally. That not being possible, I declined to answer but gave permission to be called back the day after the election to answer questions. Sure enough, on Wednesday, CBS called back and asked about my voting behavior. I told the woman on the other end of the line (I think it was a woman and not Walter Cronkite, unless Uncle Walter was wearing his boxers about seven sizes too small) that I had not voted at all...despite having every intention of doing so. Being relatively new to Las Vegas, I really didn't have a good handle on the local races but planned on voting in the presidential. However, when the networks (there were only three at the time and not much else) called the race early for Ronald Reagan, I decided my vote wasn't relevant and stayed home. (Really, I think I went to a Tony Bennett concert...he's a candidate I could get behind!) Well, the voice on the other end of the phone said, mostly to herself, "Wow, I'm hearing that a lot from the western states." Sure enough, that night on the news, the lead story was about how the networks jumping the gun on results may have seriously depressed turn-out in the west and affected state-wide and local races in big ways. Naturally, I expected to be quoted by name in the story but was not. I know if I had just gotten to speak to Mr. Cronkite personally, I would've been his lead story.

In college, I got to work on a congressional campaign as an intern and loved it. I helped write some speeches that our candidate, who was a very decent, bright person, would then completely mangle. Coming out of his mouth it would've been "We have nothing but fear itself to be fearful of unless we fear it fearlessly" or "Ask not what I can ask about for you but what you're asking about for the rest of us" or "Four score and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie of the people, for the people and under the people." He lost. After college, I got a job in the Wisconsin State Legislature as the one-person staff for a state representative. For the record, she was what the pundits would call "a moderate Republican." But, mostly, she was a hard-working, conscientious, smart public servant. The Kennedy's used to talk about the nobility of politics and government, which, admittedly, seems a little hard to swallow sometimes. But, Representative Lolita Schneiders lived up to that lofty goal. Whenever I feel my cynicism about politics and politicians reaching an unhealthy breaking point, I think about Lolita and remember that there are those willing to serve for all the right reasons.

Oh..oh. This just in: Elmo and Mr. Potato-Head have agreed to a series of debates leading up to the holidays. It will be moderated by Ken and Barbie with questions coming from Raggedy Ann, GI Joe and Betsy Wetsy. Mr. Potato-Head says he will embarrass Elmo and "leave the little monster totally red-faced." Elmo promises to "mash" his opponent. Stay tuned for continuing coverage. Or not.