Yesterday, my friend and fellow Kossack 3rdshifter came over to my place to enjoy a few football games. We delighted in watching the return of the Indianapolis Colts to their offensive and defensive glory, but were miffed when the station decided to switch to a more competitive game once they decided that the Colts game was firmly in the 'Win' column for the hometown boys.
Only temporarily at a loss for what to do between then and the Sunday night game, we began having a 'Heroes' marathon, since I had never seen the show and 3rdshifter does his best to addict me to television shows ("If I keep doing this, I'm going to have to start referring to myself as your dealer", 3rdshifter joked just before we started our private little marathon).
Sometime during the second 'Heroes' episode, 3rdshifter's cell phone rang. I was mildly curious, because he has ID ringers set on his phone and I usually know who's calling him based on the ringtone. I didn't recognize this particular ringtone, but I was too engrossed in the TV to pry him for information. Or at least I was, until 3rdshifter's jaw fell to the floor.
He paused the DVD player, and I had no choice but to pay attention to him. He scrambled to find the speakerphone button on his cell, and when he finally did, I heard the recorded voice of a robo-pollster.
He answered the questions in Obama's favor. After he hung up, he said that he hadn't heard of anyone getting polled via cell phone. Neither had I. But if this is something that pollsters start doing, I think that they'll end up with a much more accurate cross-section. I don't have a landline, and neither does 3rdshifter.
Fast-forward to this morning - past our disappointment of Keith Olbermann not being on Football Night in America due to strep throat (get well soon, Keith!) - to me learning that early voting in Illinois started today. I had thought that it started tomorrow. I had been chomping at the bit to find out where I could go to vote early ever since I learned that Illinois allowed early voting, but until today I hadn't found a list of early voting locations.
So on my lunch break, I told my boss that I was going to go vote. The polling place that I went to was my former college. It was interesting to see how it had grown and changed since I had gone there.
There was already a line of people waiting to get to a voting booth. The voting officials were very helpful and very personalbe. I had been worried that I may have some problems because my ID doesn't list my current address (in Illinois, you can change your address in the DMV computer for free, but it costs $20 to have another ID printed!) so I brought an electric bill with me. But, none of the election officials challenged me on it.
An interesting woman stood in line behind me and engaged me in conversation. She had said that she had voted in every election since Ike in '56, and that her daughter had been born the day after she cast her vote for Ike. Without actually saying it, she alluded to the fact that she was voting for Obama. This made me a bit nervous, since they did have a sign up that warned of no campaign materials, etc. within 100ft of the voting booths so I didn't know if talking about how you were going to vote was against the rules, too.
When I finally made it to the voting booth, there was an older woman with an assistant in the booth next to me. The voting booths were in a very cramped area, so I heard the conversation these two had very easily. I remember smiling at some of the questions this woman had. To paraphrase, I remember her asking the assistant in regards to one of the local races "Where is the Democratic candidate?" A couple of our local races had Republican candidates running unopposed. "There is no Democratic candidate," the assistant responded. "Well, I'm not voting for ANY Republican!" the woman said very strongly. The assistant told the woman that she didn't have to pick anyone if she didn't want to.
I have been surprised time and again in this election cycle by the way Obama's message crosses demographics. And as I left the polling place, I saw how the line had grown. Since there was no exit polling, I can only speculate as to how many of these folks were voting for Obama, but I feel like his chances are good, even in this somewhat conservative area of Illnois.