“I’m not watching,” I told
Mike. “If anything happens that will
make me happy call me down.”
It was 5:30 PM on election
night . I went to my room, put on my PJs and climbed in bed. I was praying the entire time. I had been praying almost constantly for weeks. My stomach was uneasy. I wanted this day to be over. I dreaded its coming in the first
place. I was too invested in this
election. We watched all 12ish of the
Primary debates. How crazy they had so
many. Mitt Romney was my man, not just
because he is a Mormon but because I am convinced that he is a man of great
character, a man who has a life story of service. So, by the time he had landed the nomination
I was hooked.
I followed the campaign with
the Michael Medved radio talk show. I
have listened to him for years but now I hung on every word. Michael is wise and knowledgeable. He always made me feel positive, even when
the polls looked discouraging. In my mind there were so many reasons not to
give Obama another four years: The high
unemployment rate, the huge rise in the debt and deficit, the lack of support
for religious principles as marriage and abortion, his health care mandate, the
recent handling of the murders in Bengazi, and well, I had a lot of issues. I didn’t trust what Obama said. I saw him as a cult personality, created by
the media, that believed he could do no
wrong. I donated money for the first
time to a campaign.
Then I started to post
YouTube campaign videos and articles I found to my facebook page. I posted a comment on facebook saying that I
was feeling politically motivated and it might be best for any of my friends
not to open my links if it might offend them.
I had other friends posting Obama support. It all puzzled me. I could see the “slash and burn” campaign of
Obama, painting Romney as an evil out of touch rich guy. So many lies were being told and it was
making me sick. I had dozens of stories
of Romney’s amazing compassion through the years. Plus he seemed to be “a man uniquely
qualified for the needs of the time,” a man who knew business and had the will
to cut spending and work across the aisle.
Before the debates I received
e-mails from entities organizing fasts and collective prayers. I joined in with gusto. After the first debate when Romney did so
well and Obama stuttered 52 times I thought, “Wow, these prayers worked!”
So election night I sat in my
bed and watched a Netflix movie that turned out to gratefully entertaining and
distracting, “ Island On Bird Street”. But at the end it was only 7:30 and I
had a lot of night left. I tried to
study Spanish but couldn’t concentrate.
I found 6 cookie dough balls in the freezer and baked them. I got out my scriptures and read 7 chapters
of John from my current New Testament reading.
Usually after 2 or 3 chapters I am falling asleep. I pulled “Cranford” out of my video cabinet
and watched for an hour. Mike came with
discouraging information, and I knew “that which I had feared,” was indeed
coming to past. I went to bed and cried
a little and fell asleep but not soundly. When Mike came to bed at midnight we
talked for an hour. He was angry. He posted on his facebook before coming to
bed: “Welcome to Greece.” I was glad I hadn’t watched the returns. We split an ambian because we knew we might
never sleep. It wasn’t a good night and
at 2:00 AM, Mikes snoring drove me to the couch. The ambian helped a little but I was still
fitful.
In the darkness of the night
I swore off elections. Never again would
I let something like this dominate my life and emotions as it had the last few
months. I do feel the country is
changing and it worries me. I feel that
honesty and character don’t matter anymore, that we want our politicians to be a
rock star Santa Clause, that marriage and family are no longer a driving force
in our society, that if you don’t believe in abortion you are waging a war on
women. But what can I do about it? Follow the Prophet and keep the commandments
and “trust in the Lord with all my heart” that is all the power I have and one
vote.
PS- I am like an addict trying
to wean myself away as the post-election commentaries keep drawing me in. This
is a sad commentary from Wednesday’s Deseret News.
South Carolina pollster Dave
Woodard, a political science professor at Clemson University, said voters
nationwide did know Romney. The problem,
Woodard said, was not enough voters shared his values. “I think the values we see in him are not the
values of this country. It’s just that
simple,” Woodard said. “I just don’t
think the country is what it was when we picked Ronald Reagan.”
Romney, Woodard said, was “an
ice-cream perfect guy.” Who was rejected
because more voters align with the Democratic president on social issues,
including support for gay marriage and abortion rights. “I think half of us fell in love with this
guy,” Woodward said of Romney, praising his values. “The country didn’t want a leader like
that….It’s not like they didn’t know him.
It’s that they just didn’t want what he stood for.”
Soon I will be on my mission
and maybe I can put this behind me.
