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"    HARRISBURG, N.C. \u2014 I&amp;#039;ve seen some things here today. I&amp;#039;ve seen a woman in an ushanka handing out Republican voter guides; she told me, out at the polls at Harrisburg Elementary, that an Obama re-election would equal &amp;quot;communism, socialism, living like people did under Hitler.&amp;quot; I&amp;#039;ve met the sweetest elderly volunteer in human history; her name is Caroline Myers, and I want her to kidnap me and knit me a sweater. I&amp;#039;ve seen a woman, not fifteen feet from Caroline, who can&amp;#039;t even talk to her best friend right now \u2014 a friend she&amp;#039;s known since she was six and who just this summer helped her through the death of her mother \u2014 because her friend&amp;#039;s a Republican. I sold her that&amp;#039;s really sad, that&amp;#039;s I&amp;#039;m really kind of crumpled by all of it, that I feel sort of flattened. And so I&amp;#039;ve felt some things here today. It&amp;#039;s overcast and cold on Election Day in North Carolina. At home this afternoon, my best friend, Adam, and his mother \u2014 they&amp;#039;re my surrogate family down here, since I&amp;#039;m from Oklahoma \u2014 come into the living room, walk over, and sit on the futon. Adam&amp;#039;s twenty-eight and his mother is fifty-eight and they bear a resemblance to each other as strong as I&amp;#039;ve seen in a mother and son: dark hair and light eyes, good-looking, both very short. Adam&amp;#039;s five-foot-four and his mother is four-eleven and they talk like Northerners, by which I mean, fast. &amp;quot;What&amp;#039;s the problem?&amp;quot; Adam says. I sit for a second. I tell him I&amp;#039;m not cut out for all this. Adam&amp;#039;s mother asks me what I mean. I say what I suppose I mean is that I feel so alienated by our current political situation that I can barely bring myself to vote. I hate the incivility. I hate the hysteria. I hate to see us becoming reliant on gadgets that we consult like handheld oracles, full of opinions based on tweets and blog posts: digitized rumors. We don&amp;#039;t know where our beliefs really come from anymore, and we don&amp;#039;t have the time or attention span to \u2014 &amp;quot;Wait,&amp;quot; says Adam, &amp;quot;you didn&amp;#039;t vote?&amp;quot; &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;ll do it later,&amp;quot; I say. &amp;quot;When later?&amp;quot; says Adam. &amp;quot;You&amp;#039;re running out of later.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Maybe,&amp;quot; I tell him, &amp;quot;I just won&amp;#039;t.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;You&amp;#039;re not going to at all?&amp;quot; Mama asks. &amp;quot;Maybe not,&amp;quot; I say. &amp;quot;You got to be shitting me,&amp;quot; says Adam, and he and his mother launch into this Democratic open-mic.  &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s your civic duty,&amp;quot; they conclude. The words sound so odd to me: Civ-ik doo-dee. And then, before I realize what&amp;#039;s happening, they&amp;#039;re hustling me out of my recliner and through the front door. The three of us, they tell me, are going back to the polls. Afterwards, they&amp;#039;ll take me to Panera. I got no problem with this and I&amp;#039;m sort of addicted to Panera&amp;#039;s Roasted Turkey Salad.  No tomatoes or pecans. We walk down toward their black Hyundai Accent, Adam and his mother explaining why a Romney presidency would be a disaster. Their takeoff point is Medicare, Romney and Ryan&amp;#039;s proposed voucher system. I don&amp;#039;t know anything about R&amp;amp;amp;R&amp;#039;s system, so I ask what, exactly, this system is. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s bullshit,&amp;quot; Adam says. &amp;quot;My mother won&amp;#039;t be able to understand it,&amp;quot; Mama tells us. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;ll confuse her to death.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;The point,&amp;quot; says Adam, &amp;quot;ain&amp;#039;t that it&amp;#039;s going to confuse senior citizens. The point is it&amp;#039;s going to screw senior citizens.&amp;quot; I pull out my notepad. Adam unlocks the car and his mother \u2014 a transplanted New Yorker who&amp;#039;s made me promise not to use her actual name \u2014 tells me to get in the front. &amp;quot;I can&amp;#039;t do that,&amp;quot; I say. &amp;quot;Yes,&amp;quot; she tells me: &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m fine in the back.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Won&amp;#039;t you get motion sick in the back?&amp;quot; asks Adam. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;ll get motion sick in the front,&amp;quot; Mama says. It&amp;#039;s not gentlemanly, but I know better to argue. I get in and shut the door.  &amp;quot;Romney&amp;#039;s voucher,&amp;quot; I say. &amp;quot;Put it to you this way,&amp;quot; says Adam, and we back out and begin pulling through the lot, &amp;quot;Romney wants \u2014&amp;quot; &amp;quot;I can&amp;#039;t stand him,&amp;quot; Mama says. I glance at her, hoping she&amp;#039;ll give me more. &amp;quot;He&amp;#039;s everything that&amp;#039;s wrong with everything,&amp;quot; she tells me. &amp;quot;The anti-government shtick.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;That&amp;#039;s not Romney,&amp;quot; says Adam. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s the entire Republican Party.&amp;quot; I say this is strange because Republicans used to be the progressives. &amp;quot;They did,&amp;quot; agrees Adam. &amp;quot;Did they?&amp;quot; Mama says. &amp;quot;Yeah,&amp;quot; I tell her, shrugging: &amp;quot;Lincoln.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Lincoln was progressive?&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;He was totally progressive,&amp;quot; Adam says. &amp;quot;You guys know,&amp;quot; says Mama, &amp;quot;what Lincoln wanted to do?&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Kill vampires?&amp;quot; I say. &amp;quot;He wanted to send the slaves back to Africa,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;He did?&amp;quot; I say. &amp;quot;He absolutely did not,&amp;quot; Adam says. &amp;quot;Yes,&amp;quot; says Mama. &amp;quot;I read that somewhere.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;No, you didn&amp;#039;t,&amp;quot; Adam says. &amp;quot;Where&amp;#039;d you read it?&amp;quot; I ask and she gets contemplative. &amp;quot;See,&amp;quot; she tells me, &amp;quot;now I really don&amp;#039;t know.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Thing is,&amp;quot; says Adam, &amp;quot;you&amp;#039;re such a Dead Dog Democrat, you don&amp;#039;t even want to think Lincoln was any good.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;You mean &amp;#039;Yellow Dog Democrat?&amp;#039;&amp;quot; I ask. &amp;quot;No,&amp;quot; he says, &amp;quot;&amp;#039;Dead Dog Democrat.&amp;#039; That&amp;#039;s a term.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;ve never heard that term,&amp;quot; I say. &amp;quot;I haven&amp;#039;t either,&amp;quot; says his mother. &amp;quot;Does anyone have a recorder?&amp;quot; I ask. I point to the iPhone balanced on Adam&amp;#039;s left leg. He picks it up, steers with his right knee, and starts thumbing at the screen. &amp;quot;Recording,&amp;quot; he says, placing the phone back on his thigh. &amp;quot;Would you identify as a Democrat?&amp;quot; I ask him, very on-the-record. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;d identify,&amp;quot; he says, &amp;quot;as a &amp;#039;socio-economic progressive.&amp;#039;&amp;quot; &amp;quot;A what?&amp;quot; I ask. &amp;quot;Jesus,&amp;quot; his mother says. Adam ignores us. He starts talking about George Lakoff. &amp;quot;So,&amp;quot; I say, before he can get going, &amp;quot;what would you say I am?&amp;quot;  &amp;quot;Easy,&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;You&amp;#039;re a flat-out, without question, independent.&amp;quot; I don&amp;#039;t trust Adam&amp;#039;s iPhone and I scrawl this on my notepad. &amp;quot;All right,&amp;quot; I say, &amp;quot;Romney&amp;#039;s voucher.&amp;quot; We&amp;#039;re sitting, by this point, at the intersection of Mallard Creek and Mallard Creek Church. &amp;quot;Yeah,&amp;quot; says Adam, &amp;quot;put it to you this way \u2014&amp;quot; &amp;quot;My mother&amp;#039;s going to be so confused,&amp;quot; Mama says. &amp;quot;Mom,&amp;quot; says Adam, &amp;quot;that&amp;#039;s not even the point.&amp;quot; We go down, turn onto Odell School Road, and pull into the parking lot of the Hickory Grove Baptist Church, cars, all of a sudden, stacked bumper to bumper. Adam&amp;#039;s eyes go wide as shot glasses. &amp;quot;Civic duty,&amp;quot; I remind him. We creep up behind an SUV and the vehicle slows and we come to a stop. There are drivers growing impatient behind us, cars ahead of us trying to park, and I hear someone honking over to my right. Adam&amp;#039;s looking for a parking place, circuits overloaded, gone completely mute. &amp;quot;You can park in the overflow,&amp;quot; says his mother from behind us. I glance around. I don&amp;#039;t see an overflow. Adam steers us around the SUV and we start down one of the lanes. A car cuts us off and he hits the brake and we sit there a moment. &amp;quot;You can park in the overflow,&amp;quot; Mama says. Adam looks out the window like he&amp;#039;s trying to stare through time. He says, &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m not waiting in this shit,&amp;quot; whips a U-turn, and we go down Odell and get back on Mallard Creek. Adam says they&amp;#039;ll vote later on.  &amp;quot;I thought we were out of later,&amp;quot; I say. &amp;quot;Just a little later,&amp;quot; he tells me. &amp;quot;Let it clear out.&amp;quot; Mama says they can park in the overflow and we head toward Panera. Later, my Blackberry vibrates on the desk beside me. It&amp;#039;s a text from Adam about the iPhone recording. &amp;quot;Didn&amp;#039;t work,&amp;quot; he informs me. &amp;quot;No sound.&amp;quot; Yeah, I text back, whoda thunk. His next text asks me if I voted. He says he and Mama just did. Took forty-five minutes. I don&amp;#039;t want to tell him that I haven&amp;#039;t. I decide not to respond to the question, but another text vibrates my hand. It says, that for me, there&amp;#039;s still time. --Aaron Gwyn is a novelist living in Charlotte and the author, most recently, of The World Beneath. -- ELECTION-NIGHT RESULTS ON THE POLITICS BLOG... \u2022 THE SPEECH: Tom Junod on the Transformation in Chicago \u2022 THE PRESIDENCY: Charles P. Pierce on the Greatness of Barack Obama \u2022 THE VIEW FROM OHIO: Mark Warren on the Worst Victory Party in America \u2022 THE VIEW FROM TWITTER: Stephen Marche on How Math (and Obama) Won \u2022 MASSACHUSETTS: Charles P. Pierce on How Elizabeth Warren Got Here  ELECTION DAY ON THE POLITICS BLOG, FROM EVERY SWING STATE... \u2022 FLORIDA: Charles P. Pierce with the Voting-Rights Watchdogs \u2022 OHIO: Mark Warren Traveling with Governor John Kasich (and with Romney) \u2022 NEW HAMPSHIRE: Margaret Doris in 5-Vote Territory (and with Romney) \u2022 VIRGINIA: Elizabeth Sile on Voter-ID in New Blue County \u2022 NEVADA: Jason Whithed Searching for Sheldon Adelson \u2022 WISCONSIN: Joe Tarr on the Voter Fraud That Wasn&amp;#039;t \u2022 NORTH CAROLINA:  \u2022 IOWA: Kyle Minor on the Easy Magic of the Battleground \u2022 COLORADO: Sam Levin at the Last Defeat Party (and with Obama and Romney) \u2022 ...AND PENNSYLVANIA: Isaiah Thompson on the Blue State That Would Be Red PLUS: John H. Richardson in Breezy Point with Sandy Victims Voting "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/news/a16605/north-carolina-election-day-2012-14501099/>