Our new America

Barack Obama officially changed our nation yesterday, winning the hearts and minds of millions who previously never gave a thought to politics. And it really shouldn't have come as a surprise to anyone.

This election has been unique from the very start.

Obama is a politician like none I've seen in my lifetime. He's so different, in fact, that I don't know what to think. He has fans and followers with an enthusiasm that typically accompanies boy bands and football teams.

It's that hero worship, not his politics, that makes me uncomfortable. I've been brought up to believe that you can't trust politicians and that it's the public duty to question their actions and inactions.

But in this election, I found that people were personally insulted if you so much as asked a question about Obama. It was as if by questioning Obama, you were questioning their entire existence. There was a new emotion in this election. Of course after eight years of George Bush, I can see how people would get a little emotional.

My father points out that we can now thank Bush for one positive thing: Motivating people to vote.

And I certainly give Obama credit for getting interested in politics again. I worked as an election judge again and voters voted with a passion. We went to start setting up the polls on Monday night and one gentleman came by just to make sure he knew exactly where to go the next morning. I was the first election judge to arrive on Tuesday morning and at 5:15 a.m., there were already people camped out.

We went non-stop from the time the polls opened at 7 a.m. until 12:20 when we finally got a minute's break. Surprisingly, the steady flow did not continue through the day. Although we reached a 69 percent voter turnout at our precinct, the afternoon and evening hours were very slow.

Many more people brought their children with them to vote this time around. And unless you've got a screaming baby, I've always thought this was an important thing to do. I still remember my parents taking us with them to vote over the years. I particularly remember going with my mom to Winand Elementary to vote in the Reagan-Mondale contest in 1984. I thought those old-style voting booths with the levers and curtains were the coolest thing. I hope the kids of today had the same positive experience as I did.

I'm very curious to see what will happen once Obama is inaugurated in January. Every president gets a honeymoon period, but I have to wonder how long Obama's freedom from criticism will last.

I really wish him the best of luck, even though I might not agree with him on all of the issues (but I also don't agree with McCain). He has a tough job ahead of him and a lot of work to do. It's a job that I certainly don't envy.

For America's sake, I hope he really does have all the answers. But I also hope people remember that he's a politician and as citizens, we have a duty to keep our elected officials in check. After all, it was George Bush who argued that it's un-American to challenge your government and we all see how well that worked out.

What if they held an election and no one came?

If Maryland's presidential primary was supposed to actually matter for once, no one bothered to inform the voters in my neighborhood.

I, along with my fellow election judges at Cedarmere Elementary, expected a heavy turnout due to the contentious Obama-Hillary race. We were very wrong. Except for a small rush of voters when the polls opened and another surge after 5, we had very little traffic. We barely made it to a 32 percent turnout. (Our precinct, in case you're wondering, went heavily in favor of Obama by a 2-to-1 margin.)

The polling place was a ghost town for much of the day. Nobody bothered to electioneer outside. People driving past the school would have no way to know there was an election going on inside.

As bored as we were, we knew we couldn't leave the precinct for any reason so we had to find ways to entertain ourselves during the downtime. My most creative use of time award goes to the election judge at our poll who used voting stickers to make works of art. The sunburst, featured above, is my personal favorite.

I'm quite thankful that the voters at the precinct were very nice and grateful for our work. I'm sure the fact that they didn't have to wait in line contributed to their good moods. Everyone thanked us for helping and even the people who were upset because they were unable to vote (because they were unaffiliated, at the wrong polling place, or hadn't bothered to register) voiced their gripes in a polite manner.

But you know what would have really been nice? It would have been oh-so-nice if the elections board actually bothered to inform us that, due to the crappy weather, the polls would be open 90 minutes later. We only found out because one of the election judges had a call from her son-in-law asking if it was true that we had to stay open. We tried to verify the rumor by calling the elections board but nobody answered. Instead, I had to call my husband who checked the news and sure enough, our captivity had been extended.

I understand the reason for extending the voting hours. I really do. No one is more gung-ho about the importance of voting than this nerdy political science major. Still, I really wish they had considered the safety of the elections judges in this decision.

We'd all been inside since 6 a.m. and the freezing rain did a wonderful job of encasing our vehicles in an inch-thick layer of ice. After we finished out 16-and-a-half-hour workday at 10:30 p.m., we were freed only to forge an icy sidewalk and parking lot. With front and rear defrosters on high and my scraper getting the workout of a lifetime, it still took half and hour to get my car into a drivable condition.

I stuck to the main roads and everything was fine until I got to my street and lost total control of the car. My steering wheel was impotent to the forces of the ice. I almost plowed into two different light poles but by some stroke of luck, managed to avoid them.

I came to a stop about 30 feet from my driveway. I was blocking a driveway and the mailbox so I knew I had to move but I was too afraid to go anywhere. After calling both Rich and my parents for advice, I started to drift again and eventually wound up in the driveway. I've never been so happy to be home.

I may complain, but I'm still really glad I was a part of the process. As an unaffiliated voter who can't vote in Maryland's closed primary anyway, it was important to me to have some hand in this important election. Besides, someone has to do it.

That said, I will now return to CNN for my regular dose of election coverage.

To breathe again

I couldn't be more excited for Maryland to go entirely smoke-free this Friday, February 1. I also couldn't be more conflicted.

For, you see, as much as I absolutely hate smoking, I also hate the thought of the Maryland General Assembly stepping in and mandating what legal activities its citizens can and cannot do.

I've been putting off writing about this because this is such a difficult issue for me to reconcile. My libertarian leanings tell me to be outraged at this invasion into people's personal choices and the rights of business owners to respond to what the public wants.

But, at the same time, I've always put smokers right up there with drunk drivers, child molesters, and people who end sentences in a preposition. Are these really people I want to protect?

I come by this hatred naturally. For as long as I can remember, my grandmother made me promise that I would never smoke even a single cigarette because cigarettes killed her father. Yes, she used the word killed. And because of that warning, I've never so much as touched a cigarette.

The other side of the family shouldn't be left out. One of my favorite stories from my Aunt Judy, my dad's younger sister, is when she visited my parents soon after they were married. My dad was in the kitchen washing dishes and she lit up a cigarette just to see what his reaction would be. Within a split second, he turned the faucet sprayer on her and hosed her down. So yeah, we're not exactly pro-smoking in my family.

The matter is further muddied because of my passionate support for the American Cancer Society, a group that championed the ban. I feel the need to celebrate my ability to enter bars across the state without choking and reeking of smoke for hours after I leave. But I will only do so with a feeling of ambivalence.

What will you be doing this Friday as Maryland goes smoke-free? Regardless of your carcinogenic leanings, I hope you will consider dining out at one of the restaurants below that will be donating a portion of its proceeds to the American Cancer Society to mark this important milestone.

Restaurants participating in Dine Out for Relay For Life:

Bayou Blues Cafe at the Avenue at White Marsh (15% of sales, 4-6 p.m.)
Pizzeria Unos at Harbor Place (20% of sales all day.)
Greene Turtles across the state (10% of their sales from 11a.m.-2 p.m.; The Fells Point and North Ocean City locations will be donating 10% of their sales all day.)

Something to believe in

It's a pretty exciting time to be a Marylander.

Cal Ripken Jr. is headed to the Baseball Hall of Fame, the Ravens are headed to the playoffs, and our tax-and-spend politicians are headed to Annapolis.

Yes, it's General Assembly season -- a time for back-stabbing, pork-barreling, and constituency-screwing. And judging by past elections, we Marylanders wouldn't have it any other way.

But it's also a time of delusional hope, for there's always a chance that one of our elected officials will do something purposeful and worthwhile and that it won't backfire.

I have just a few hopes for this year's session. First, I would like to see Maryland finally pass a law like the one proposed by Sen. Brian Frosh that would allow consumers to put a freeze on their credit reports before they fall victim to identity theft.

Now would also be a good time to legalize slots here in Maryland. Why should my husband and I have to leave the state to lose our money to silly machines? It's really not so different than the Maryland Lottery or those slot machines that aren't really slot machines at bingo parlors. Hopefully without the partisan name-calling we can actually make some progress on the slots issue this session.

I would also like to see the establishment of some agency responsible for the oversight of condominium and homeowner's associations. While I know this is very unlikely and I'm generally against bigger government anyway, it really is a needed addition. The Task Force on Common Ownership Communities is expected to report back this year so we'll have to wait and see where that takes us.

And that brings me to my most important wish for this year. Special note to legislators: Please, please, please don't pass any new laws unless you have some means of enacting and enforcing them. Otherwise the bill becomes nothing more than one of our other unenforced laws and will be treated as a joke.

Oh, yeah, and please don't raise taxes.

So as we sit back and hold onto our wallets through the next three months of the session, I can only hold my breath and hope for the best. It'll all be over soon enough.

Go Ravens!

It's just a stupid sandwich

Annapolis is all abuzz this week with talk of what kind of sandwich Gov-elect Martin O'Malley will select to bear his name at the venerable Chick and Ruth's Delly.

Will he honor his Irish roots and choose corned beef or will he kowtow (or cow-tow, perhaps) to the vegetarian lobby and select something without meat?

Or most importantly, does it matter? It didn't matter four years ago when Gov. Bob Ehrlich went against recommendations and chose a turkey sandwich and this time around is no different.

The local media can't seem to get enough of this story and yet I can't seem to care. The tv stations talk about it every chance they get and The Sun has already given more ink to sandwichgate than to O'Malley's selections for his deputy chiefs of staff. Pardon me if I'm more concerned with the governor-to-be's decisions on taxes, slots, and the death penalty, than I am with his lunch choices.

All of this hullabaloo takes me back to an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm where Larry David is honored with a sandwich at Leo's Delicatessen. In typical Larry David fashion, he's not happy -- he doesn't like the sandwich selected for him (whitefish, sable, onions, capers and cream cheese) and wants to switch with his friend Ted Danson (the turkey, cole slaw and Russian dressing.) Hilarity, of course, ensues.

Now life imitates art and I have to tell you, I like the art version better. I'm certainly not against a little levity in politics, but this is a damn sandwich. If we're talking about something more relevant like cookies, it might be a different story.

And for the record, I think I like Attorney General Joe Curran's sandwich pick the best. His is the pizza bagel. He catered to the Italians and the Jews all at once. Can't go wrong with that.

No I.D.? No problem!

With my first stint as an election judge now complete, I'm glad to say that everything went relatively smoothly and without incident.

It was certainly a long day. I arrived at 6 a.m. and didn't make it home until close to 11 p.m. But, we had close to a 50 percent turnout at my precinct with nearly 1300 voters coming through, so it all seemed worth it.

While we did have long lines at times, most people didn't seem overly bothered by the wait. Interestingly enough, the only real issue that upset voters was that they didn't have to show any I.D. in order to vote. No license, no utility bill, no nothing. As an election judge in Maryland, we are only allowed to ask for I.D. from a first-time voter who registered through the mail or if someone challenges the potential voter's identity.

Apparently some argue that voters may feel disenfranchised or intimidated if they're asked to prove who they really are. The American Civil Liberties Union, for example, regularly challenges attempts to require I.D. at the polls, saying it is akin to a poll tax and may discourage minorities or poor people from voting.

But from my vantage point, the real feelings of disenfranchisement came from voters who realized that anyone could have shown up and voted under their name.

Working as a check-in judge the whole day, I can tell you that at least 80 percent of the people who came in handed me a driver's license or a voter identification card as soon as they walked up. This included minorities, newly naturalized citizens, senior citizens, and people from all walks of life. They were proud to be able to vote and eager to exercise that right.

And just about every single person showed surprise and/or outrage that I didn't need to see their I.D.

One particular gentleman came up to me and asked what would stop him from giving his neighbor's name and voting as him. The answer? Absolutely nothing.

It's not like this in every state. According to the Election Reform Information Project, a non-partisan forum for election reform, 21 states currently require voters to show some form of I.D. Clearly Maryland isn't one of them but I think it should be.

The electronic age makes voter fraud even easier than before. Thanks to the National Center for the Study of Elections at UMBC, any person with internet access can easily go to a website and find out a person's polling place and party affiliation, as long as you have their name, date of birth, and zip code. Then they can show up at the polling place, give that name, and voila, instant voter fraud!

To top things off, the voter rolls still contain the names of people who have died, unless the family of the deceased has specifically notified the local board of elections. This means that a quick glance at the death notices in the newspaper can arm a person with all the information they need to vote under a dead person's name.

I have no desire to discourage anyone from voting. I was proud that as an election judge, we gave every single person an opportunity to cast a ballot, whether on the electronic voting machines or by a paper provisional ballot.

But in an era where trust is a thing of the past, it's time for Maryland's voting laws to catch up. Voting is one of the most sacred rights we hold as citizens and it angers me to no end that people are willing to jeopardize the security of an election so people don't get their feelings hurt.

This is what I'm talking about

It's finally happened. The election is finally getting interesting. And it's all thanks to Michael Steele's puppy commercials.

Before I go any further, please read these important disclaimers:
1. I'm a sucker for anything with puppies, and
2. This evaluation is simply my personal assessment and should not be construed as an endorsement of either Michael Steele or Ben Cardin. (I actually can't relate to either of them.)

That said, if the senatorial race was based on originality alone, Steele would be the clear winner. Think about some of the ads you've seen on TV lately. They're all pretty much the same. You can insert Mr. Interchangeable Generic Candidate into any of them and not really notice a difference.

The following quotations come from the websites of the two candidates for governor.

"We need to focus on giving students, teachers and parents the resources they need to succeed."

"Maryland needs to share information at all levels -- federal, state and local -- to prevent disaster before it can claim more lives. We need to look to the future, with comprehensive plans, statewide drills, and interoperable communications technology, in order to protect our people and communities."

"[M]y campaign will continue to use this overwhelming expression of support to further my vision for better schools, safer neighborhoods and a healthier environment."

"Maryland must be an economic center based on first-rate education, technology, manufacturing and entrepreneurship."

Okay now tell me which quotations go with which candidate. (No Googling allowed.) Yeah, I can't do it either. Seriously... you would expect to hear any of those comments coming from either of the two candidates.

And that's why this ad campaign is different and whoever came up with it should be feeling pretty good right about now. Did you know who Michael Steele was five years ago? Do you know who he is now? Exactly.

Aside from attacting nationwide attention to the race, it's also forcing Cardin to respond. To Cardin's credit, he's done an impressive job of responding. He turned Steele's clever ad into a discussion of the issues. He reminds voters that while Steele likes puppies, he loves President Bush. For most Marylanders, that thought is far more terrifying than Steele's "scary music" any day.

Still, Steele has people talking. Even if they're not all fans of the puppy ads, people are talking about these commercials. A few crazies are calling Steele out for using a dog that wasn't his own in the ad. (Steele has a cute Husky, for those of you keeping track.) Others insist that Steele is using the commercial as a diversion from the real issues. Either way, he's getting attention and name recognition and that's the lifeblood of politics.

So thank you to the ad wizards who are making what could be an otherwise bland race a little more exciting. The voting public (or at least this member of the voting public) thanks you bunches.

Oh yeah... no offense to the inexcusable glitches preventing people from voting in the primary election. I found that really interesting too. It's just that like most Americans, TV tends to keep me interested longer that oh, say, things like constitutional rights. (Really, I'm kidding. Maybe.)

I'm such a bad political science major

On Election Day 1996, I officially declared myself as a political science major and boy was I excited. I guess I wanted it be to some sort of symbolic move to submit the paperwork that day.

A decade later, as we approach Election Day 2006, I'm not feeling quite so symbolic. I am, however, a bit more jaded.

It's not that I've lost interest in politics or have stopped following the mud-slinging, gossip, and in-fighting; I love that stuff. I'm just ready for the election to be over. Or, in the alternative, I would accept some form of outrageous scandal or development. Either way is fine with me.

This year I'm just bored. I'm bored by all candidate commercials that say nothing. I'm tired of all the huge signs littering the streets near where I live. I would put up my own big and obnoxious sign up saying "End clutter: Vote out the incumbents" but then I'd just be adding to the mess.

I'm particularly fed up with the candidates who stand with a group of supporters at busy intersections waving to drivers as if they're in touch with the common man. Listen, if they truly believe that their visibility is more important than me getting to work on time, they're probably not the best candidate for me.

Of course every once in a while a candidate will do something that makes me enjoy the election season. Michael Steele has kept things interesting with his little off-the-record or maybe not interview. I also got a little charge when Ben Cardin promised to cure cancer within ten years. (While I too find myself firmly in the anti-cancer camp, I'm thinking Ben might want to leave the disease curing to the experts.) Every once in a while non-entities like Parris Glendenning will throw an endorsement out there to see if someone is watching. (We're not. I only turned to that page to read the second-in-a-series profile on Attorney General candidates.)

I can only hope things get more interesting. I need a big scandal or some hint of impropriety to keep me interested. C'mon guys, you know it's out there. We just don't know about it yet. You want something that an apathetic populace? Make it happen.

We have a history of some wild politics in Maryland. Don't let go so easily. The citizens of the state who gave the nation Spiro Agnew deserve better.

All is fair in love, war, and airplanes

Before all of the inevitable apologies and second-guessing, I need to get something off my chest: Air marshals have every right to shoot and kill someone who, particularly in or around an airplane, claims to have a bomb.

According to news reports, a man aboard a plane at the Miami airport yesterday told people he had a bomb and when air marshals began to follow him, he ran down the aisle screaming and flailing his arms. This isn't the Price is Right, people. You just can't act that way and expect to emerge unscathed.

Critics are already starting to say that the man's wife was behind him and trying to explain that he was bipolar and hadn't taken his medication. That makes no difference to me. A bipolar person off his meds is certainly capable of bringing a bomb onto the plane and you can't expect the authorities to step back and go looking for the Prozac.

In our post-911 world, things have changed. Like it or not, and despite what viewers of Airline may see, airports are not a place for jokes, instability, and threats. The air marshals did exactly what they should have done and should be commended, not criticized for their quick-thinking actions.