Election season is officially upon us – which means, in addition to changing leaves and colder weather, there is plenty of argumentation and debate to go around.
As a journalist engaged in the ChicagoNow blogosphere, I’ve been interested in gleaning wisdom from my fellow bloggers, and have found that, much to my surprise, the average Chicagoan finds a variety of hobbies including baseball and Facebook more enticing than the presidential election. Given, I thought I was the only one who thought ignorance is bliss when it comes to politics, but it turns out that I’m in good company when it comes to ranking the presidential election low on my priority list (see Chicago Political Commentary’s candid post about watching major league baseball instead of the presidential debates, or ChicagoNow political blogger MayorDaily’s decision to turn the debate into a drinking game, or Teppi Jacobsen’s wish that election talk would disappear from Facebook).
Don’t get me wrong – I know the election is important. I therefore appreciate ChicagoNow’s political bloggers keeping me up to date on the importance of Latin voters in this election; the snarky breakdown of Joe Biden’s less-than-mediocre VP debate performance, Romney’s apparent upper hand in the presidential debate a few weeks back, and Being Catholic Really’s debate coverage and insistence people of faith actively participate in the election. But, I also know that, no matter what words are exchanged in the debates, the Bible is full of promises and examples of God accomplishing his will no matter who is leading a country or nation (see the book of Judges – disastrous). I know that, ultimately, my job is to pray for whoever ends up in the Oval Office. Taking this into consideration, it frees me to enjoy the ups and downs of the election season, and the dramatic debates occurring weekly – though, I much prefer checking out political pundits’ breakdowns after the fact than sitting through the debates themselves, as they sometimes use words, numbers, and statistics that are too big for me to understand.
So, the facts as presented on the ChicagoNow blog site stand: I can vote for Mitt Romney, a Mormon with a lot of “gravitas” (see Dennis Byrne’s ChicagoNow post focused on the importance of gravitas in the upcoming election – of which, Romney has much, and Obama has none (uh oh)); Obama, or Jesus (1,121,254 people are currently serious about putting Jesus on their ballots) on Nov. 6.
‘Til then, I’ll enjoy praying while perusing the political blogs and pundits with opinions out the wazoo.