GET OUT THE VOTE?! (HAVE YOU EVEN LOOKED OUTSIDE TODAY?)

By Kathleen Cahill Banaszak

www.kathybanaszak.blogspot.com
E-mail: kathybanaszak@wi.rr.com

I’m listening to all those news anchors and pollsters postulate about the latest Rasmussen poll. Now they’re breaking down those averages in today’s Real Clear Politics campaign poll. And it begins to dawn on me, that it has just begun snowing and blowing outside my living room window. Again.

The snow is slowly (or maybe not so slowly) piling up on top of that brand new sheet of ice from yesterday’s freezing rains. In a cool, almost trendy sort of way, this latest arctic glaze on top of all the sleek carved, streamlined mountains of piled high snow brings a certain frozen tundra appeal to the neighborhood landscape. Outer Siberia comes to mind. (I really am trying to find the silver lining in all this you know.)

As I gaze out the window…yes, I am here again today gazing out my window, feeling not just snowed in, but trapped. Yes definitely trapped. “Cabin Fever” has finally bitten me.

Today is Monday, and Tuesday is a coming fast! That would be Wisconsin’s Presidential Primary Tuesday! Everyone’s abuzz with which candidate is going where and when. Well maybe you didn’t notice, but…Hillary had to cancel her flight from Milwaukee to Wausau just yesterday. And both Hillary and Obama had to cancel three campaign events, all because of the ice and snow.

Okay, with less than 24 hours until the polls open, I am just now looking at this notice officially informing me that our polling place just moved. Yikes! (Well at least the mailman made it this weekend…that whole “come rain, come snow, ice or sleet” thing really is true after all.)

The only good thing going here was my polling place. It’s been at our neighborhood elementary school just around the corner, all of three blocks from our front door. Maybe a two minute walk, three tops.

Now, I will have to actually drive my car and risk my life as I literally skate on over to the Elks’ Club lodge on Springdale Road. That would be more like a twenty minute walk in good weather. So okay, it’s not the end of the world. But have you actually even walked on a sidewalk around here lately? (I actually had to drive in this stuff every day up until just three weeks ago when I voluntarily ended my employment way over on the North Shore. I am wondering today how did I ever do it?)

My husband fell on his touché three times just this morning on his early morning trek around the neighborhood with our two pooches. And I promptly fell flat on my behind as I walked out on the patio to try and get the knot out of the dog’s frozen leash just a little bit ago.

Of course I do not include my husband in the cast of characters who are feeling trapped and beset by “cabin fever”. The snow, the ice, the sleet – nothing is an obstacle to him. Wait, I take that back. It is an obstacle, but all the more daring the effort it takes to overcome.

My husband will drive on anything at anytime to anywhere – never mind Snow Advisories, Snow Emergencies, Winter Storm Watches or the Blizzard of the Century. It’s him against Nature.

I still remember living through Chicago’s infamous ‘Winter of ‘79’. I also still vividly recall feeling like a bona fide criminal as we drove in the only car on the interstate (all travel was officially banned at that point). But there we were on our way to downtown Chicago to see Yul Brinner in the Broadway musical classic, “The King and I.” (It was a Sunday afternoon, and just a few other folks actually showed up, and yes, the show actually did go on!)

But I digress.

The current campaign fever matters not a whit if come tomorrow, I can’t make it out my driveway or down my own front sidewalk. It’s time for a plan.

As for me, I’ll be sticking with my man come tomorrow morning. (That would be my husband folks, not Obama, McCain, et al.) He loves a weather challenge, so I’ll be buckling up with him as we skate on over to the Elks Lodge and slap on my little “I Voted Today” sticker. As a Wisconsin voter this winter of 2008, I’ll wear it as a badge of honor. I’ve earned it.