Not sure who to vote for?

Yes, who should be in control of America? I'm normally a Pepsi products fan, but I was at the grocery store two days ago and the Pepsi delivery guy was just standing there talking to some guy while the Coke delivery guy stood behind him, loading up fresh product and going over his delivery sheet... I dunno, Pepsi...you're kinda droppin' the ball on me, man.

All kidding aside, I just voted about an hour ago. Notices were sent out earlier in the week identifying polling places for anyone who wished to go ahead and get the dirty deed over with. You needn't be specially selected for this--anyone can do it if you know where and when to go.

There was a half hour wait in line at the local library, after which I was asked if I needed someone to show me how to use the voting machines. Let me admit to you now, folks...I'm in FLORIDA. They were touch-screen machines, and while I'd never used touch screens to vote before, I said, "Nah, I'm cool," or something to that effect which caused the woman in charge to ignore me 'til the next phase of the ordeal.

I was asked to fill out a simple form asking for my printed name, current address, and signature. I needed only a photo ID with signature so they could confirm that it's me. My signature caused some mild concern because it's really just two big capital letters with some scribble trailing off behind them, but after some lengthy squinting in various degrees of light, I was told to go wait in line before a table sporting three laptops.

The laptop operators confirmed our addresses by typing them into a data base and seeing if a match came up. Then a mailing label was printed and I had to initial it to confirm the info on it was correct. The woman helping me then inserted a card into some little machine attached to the laptop, fiddled with the keyboard, then handed me the card and said, "Go vote!"

I was directed toward three available touch-screens. The macines seemed rather...open to me. That is, anyone could have walked behind me and seen what I was doing, but most of the people there voting with me were slightly confused elderly folk or non-English speakers, so I doubted a fight would've broken out over my selections.

The card went into a slot and then the screen changed and everything from there on out was incredibly easy. Once you'd finished voting, you had to scan a summary of your votes to make certain you'd done what you really wanted, then a final screen with a final "button" allowed you to cast the ballot and retrieve the card which was deposited with a poll worker on your way out the door.

"Who did you vote for?" asked the kid who was carrying some of my groceries to the truck for me afterward.

"If you tell," I told him innocently, smart-ass that I am, "then it won't come true ."

So, who should you vote for? Let me give you some advice. They're called representatives because they're supposed to represent you. This is not sports, my friends. You're not obligated to choose a team, then root for it shamelessly even if they suck off the deck. Nearly everyone you see at any political rally on TV or in person are "Team Fans" who vote this way. My mother ran for political office once, and though she lost, I was raised around politicians and fundraisers from the local level all the way up to D.C. She is a political Team Fan. If a perfectly nice, honest, respectable person from some other party was running for office against a piece of roadkill scraped up with a shovel and chosen the future representative of her party, she'd vote for the roadkill every time. I'm not making this up--I actually asked her once and she admitted it!

Obviously, then, it burns her something terrible to know that I'm blind to party lines, though I am a registered voter with a specific, well-known party, and will honestly vote for whichever of a set of candidates best represents my personal views.

People have called me an extremely liberal conservative and a very conservative liberal, but then I've seldom fallen squarely into any sort of societal label, so I don't give a hoot either way.

The majority of voters for any given election will vote for their own party even if it's the Resurrect Hitler Party and they all know they're going to hell. That's why you always hear so much about candidates going after those "undecided voters". That's who this whole article is aimed at. Those of you who vote for your own party exclusively have already stopped reading this and are looking for something more entertaining to do. That's okay. I have no patience with people like you, either.

You do not have to vote. It's nice if you can mainly because we have this right in America while many other nations do not. Minorities are encouraged to vote, and it's nice if they do after so many of their ancestors fought so hard for their right to do so here, too. Many people choose not to vote because they feel it doesn't really matter. Each guy in the White House screws up things in his own way, makes a few cool decisions that benefit someone, then is gone before he can really get into the swing of things. President Of The United States is both a fantastic and absolutely terrible job, because sure, there are great perks, but you end up getting blamed for so danged much! You enter office with your own agendas and ideas only to learn you'll spend half your energy trying to undo half the things the last guy did while trying to get your new stuff pushed through a cranky, nitpicky gang of Congressmen and Senators. Four years doesn't strike me as enough time to get much done, and even if you're doing a pretty good job, someone promoted heavily by the other party wants you out because he thinks he's so much better for the job than you.

Please pay no attention to political advertising when you're trying to make your decision. Most ads by one guy (or gal) do little more than bash the reputation of the other guy with a lot of information that's taken out of context. They go at each other like lawyers, preying on the exact wording of each other, trying to make one look like an idiot just because he said "cream pies" when he meant "french fries". Candidate A will tell you that Candidate B voted against Being Kind To Your Elders and We Need More Hospitals, and maybe that's true , but many laws and referendums come with messy, ugly, sticky strings that make voting for such things completely unfeasible. For example, just to push things through in a hurry, Being Kind To Your Elders might've had some sneaky little extra tidbit attached to it like, It's Okay To Run Over Puppies And Small Children If You Own A Hummer. Candidate B caught that and voted against Being Kind To Elders. Candidate A might not have voted for it either for the same reason, but he'd never bring up the Puppies and Children bit while slinging mud at his opponent. So NEVER listen to one candidate talk about the voting record of the other. In my opinion, I'd much rather hear advertising describing the good qualities of any candidate and what their ultimate plans in office will be than listen to A call B a Stupid Doodie Head on a televised debate.

The ugliness of political ads and the way candidates attack each other in debates makes me fear for the well-being of our land. We might as well vote between a spoiled rotten pair of eleven year old brothers who fight constantly and think one gets more love from Mom than the other. You'd think there'd be some sort of professionalism going on here...and while the words are often mature and multisyllabic, they're usually still just sticking out their tongues and going, "Nyah-nyah!" at each other, hoping you'll find one of them slightly more charming than the other. This is when we start thinking of the whole thing as a vote for the lesser of two evils and can't wait for it to just end already so the trees will stop being butchered for political-ad covered garbage we fill our trashcans with, the annoying yard signs will disappear, and something truly relevant to our daily existence will take over the newspapers and evening news, but if you read my article, "Death Violence Sports & Weather", then you already know how I feel about that.

Yard signs. Yeah, right. "I was undecided until I saw that brightly colored sign in Harold's yard down the block and now I know who to vote for, by golly!"

My brother and I are voting against each other for the Presidential election. He gripes, "Then you just canceled my vote out!" But as we all know, it doesn't really matter who you actually vote for because the Electoral College can cancel out all of our votes if they darned well feel like it, making us wonder what all the fuss was about.

In summary, it's cool to vote. You can vote for whomever you please, but it's better if your vote is an educated one, based on the experience and integrity of the candidates involved and not their personal lives or what party they're affiliated with. If we don't like 'em, then they tend to go away over time, some sooner than others. We are lucky to have the ability to choose our own leaders in America, and we are lucky that no one forces us to get up off the couch and support some kind of change if we don't want to. Vote for the lesser of two evils if you see no true good, or vote for someone else entirely to make a statement that you're displeased. Should we just abolish political parties, then? I haven't thought that far ahead, yet. No governmental style has ever proven itself infallable over time. I recognize that what we have is better than what a lot of other nations must go through, but we certainly have our flaws, too. We're a young country. There're still a few bugs left to work out, but we're definitely seeking them out and trying to better things for everyone overall.

P.T. Barnum said, "You can please some of the people some of the time, but you can't please all of the people all of the time." Even your best friend, lover, and relatives drive you nuts sometimes. You will never agree with anybody else on everything wholeheartedly, but you're striving for something better when you vote for whomever best matches your ideals and views.

Vote early if you can and you plan to vote at all. The convenience is satisfying. Read all the small print on the included Amendments, and if you're not sure what a particular one is about, skip it or ask one of the poll workers to explain it to you.

And remember not to tell anyone who you voted for... Naw, I'm just kidding. Just remember that if you do tell, you're opening yourself up to trouble from the guy or gal within earshot who thinks they know better than you do. It won't be me. I'm very open-minded. But I do prefer the taste of Pepsi better.