Its true everyone is anxious. The cause is constant blurring of the truth, which cripples the idea that informed voters will make it right. The level and numbers of ignorant voters with no time or inclination to be aware of history, to research claims and positions, relying instead to AM radio pundits and the like to tell them what to do makes the whole thing frustrating. We have the GOP, which in my long life experiance has existed for the advancement of business, now worried about the working man. Only one thing should guide voters, remembrance of the record, and I don't mean the recent record.

Politics Inc. has become big business. Yes at a time of great economic pain we seem to find a billion or two to fund lies through political advertisements. The media feeds on this because they love the money lavished on their industry. One suspects that they relish adding to the feeding frenzy by focusing on the side shows and clown acts. Why does Newt Gingrich deserve air time when this man thinks that children should work as janitors in their own schools instead of learning how to secure their economic futures? The talking head shows on cable news feature armies of consultants and commentariat experts who mostly push their product. This is not news its just another form of advertising. They need to wear their product labels on their foreheads and disclose who funds their views on the news. You can't have a civil society without civil discourse except there is no money for such a thing. The debates are thoroughly dominated by TV journalists who think more about ratings than extracting the truth from the candidates. Candy Crowley's at the moment fact checking on Romney was exceptional except that the lies that emanate from the mouths of politicians are not a rara avis. Imagine three Presidential and one Vice Presidential debates that did not discuss the housing debacle and the cost of deregulation or the environment or global climate change or transportation and the health of cities and their role in invigorating the economy? Imagine no more. Democracy is being subsumed by corporatism. The job creators are deified as are "small businesses" in the Republican lexicon. Soon we will all be small businesses and no longer families or individuals. All taxes will "hurt" small businesses as well as all regulations which are always burdensome and inhibit creativity and entrepreneurship. Billionaires feel slighted and put upon and must be soothed with fewer taxes lest they sit on their ashes with their cashes or offshore their money and investments which can only be wooed back by more tax breaks. Employers can tell their employees what the consequences are of not voting their corporate interests; hint,hint. The investor class will dwell on Mt. Olympus while the working class will dwell in wage slave hell as part timers waiting for their employees to time manage their work minutes in a just in time regime. I may have to change my username.

oh yes... this article says the things I have been thinking and wondering about. Carroll does it again.

Have a gin and tonic and chill, Mr. Carroll.  The impending defeat of Barack Obama will not be the end of the world.

Good look at the big picture.  Don't let the bosses forget that 95% of the readers won't get it.