As most in the U.S. should have known, today (well, yesterday, to be pedantic) was election day. A lot of key Senate seats were up for grabs, all of the House (as always), and several governor positions. On top of all this was the usual mix of state and local elections, ballot initiatives, etc. Only this year, I talked myself out of voting.

I think my voter apathy can be traced back to the 1976 campaign year. I was 8 years old, and I and my 6-year-old brother had talked our parents into letting us stay up to watch one of those "nature gone horriby wrong" horror films, one about giant rabbits (whose title I can't remember). I remember it was on pretty late, so it must not have been a school night (and ergo not the actual election day that year). Anyway, something political pre-empted our movie feature. We tried our damnedest to stay awake, hoping that the movie would still show. We fell asleep in front of the TV. Some aspect of politics was more important than our movie about giant rabbits terrorizing the countryside.

I obviously still have issues with this.

So, I didn't vote after all, despite telling several people that I would. If the issues I considered important don't pass, I'll have to accept that I didn't do my part. I couldn't motivate myself to vote for Gray Davis as our governor, even though I sincerely believe Bill Simon would be much worse. And none of the third-party candidates have enough clues between them to start a fire, much less run California. Oh well. I suppose I'll go check CNN and see what I've missed so far.