So here we are in another fun election year. To say Ric and I enjoy politics would be an understatement. We love watching the returns on election night and have friends over to watch the Presidential debates. We are dorky concerned citizens that enjoy the fun of election year. At least the latter part of it.
Unlike Ric, I do not enjoy the primary season. I do not love watching the seventeen million debates that seem to be on every other night for at least 6 months straight. I find it absurd that after each debate a winner is declared and then that person is the guy/gal of choice for a whopping 48 hours. Until the next debate.
My husband, however, cannot get enough of it. We will be settled in for the evening, watching Criminal Minds, and the very second a commercial comes on, he has flipped to the news channel. He has become so smooth that sometimes I don’t even notice it has happened until I myself have become sucked into the commentaries. By the time I realize we are no longer helping Hotch and his team find a serial killer, the show is almost over.
He actually looks forward to the debates and becomes so engrossed in them that he hears nothing else. I recognize this is most certainly a common trait for the male population during TV watching. For Ric it becomes much more serious during the debates. I do almost anything I can to avoid them. I do enjoy when they really get into it with each other, so we share a laugh, but then I go back to my manicure or Words With Friends game.
I wish I enjoyed this leg of the journey a little more. It just gets a little overwhelming to spend so very much time watching and listening and hoping when there is real life going on. These guys are genuinely working to make our country a better place, but I’ve got diapers to change and homework to check.
It also seems like, to a small extent, it is an exercise in futility. The person I usually am most aligned with in December rarely makes it past the Iowa caucus. Perhaps this is the real source of my disdain – I hate to lose. I prefer to save face and wait until we have a candidate set in stone, then get emotionally invested. I know it sounds ridiculous and childish, but hey, it’s a free country.