Hope

Spent the evening visiting with my Dad.  As is usual, we sat in the living room with the TV on low.  That lets us chat about what's been going on in our lives, how the kids are doing, and stop to watch any particularly interesting bit of reporting on Fox News (my Dad's news channel of choice).

We talked about my eldest getting her first hunting license, whether or not we'd have Christmas at his house this year, how my brothers were doing... all the usual stuff.  We also shared stories we had read about life in NJ and NY post-Sandy, which of course caused us to veer off into politics (also as usual). My Dad's a lifelong Democrat, but of the conservative variety; so we generally see eye-to-eye on a lot of things, and tonight was no exception.

What did surprise me were some of the topics he brought up.  Benghazi, for one - thank Fox News for his being aware of that.  Early voting and voter fraud.  He was also very concerned, not with the reporting on the presidential race, but with the lack of reporting on various Senate races nationwide.  One that got special mention from him was the Brown/Warren race in MA.

Overall, I came away from talking to him feeling optimistic.  I'm pretty sure there are millions of people like him across the country.  They may not be hardcore political junkies, they may not know all the details... but they've got some idea of what's going on, or not going on, right now.

And they're not happy with it.

Four more days.