On voting

I am not a bleeding heart Liberal.

In college, I was a registered Independent. But the thing that sucks about that is that you can't vote in the primaries. In order to vote in a primary election, you have to choose either red or blue.

After college, I changed to a registered Democrat. I didn't get to pick Barack Obama in the primary election, and I was bummed about that.

I do not vote for Democrats just because they're Democrats.

I will sing this to anyone who will listen, but I will vote for Jerry Moran any day. I talked with him many a times as a reporter, and he always treated me kindly and with respect.

He did not show up in a Blackhawk helicopter when a Kansas town was destroyed by a tornado. He drove in quietly, dodged the national media circus, talked to me, a local reporter, then went about his business.

If he ran for president, I would vote for him in a heartbeat. I, a registered Democrat, would stick a Moran poster in my front yard. I would change my party affiliation to vote for him in the primary.

I stayed far, far away from politics this year. I did not watch any presidential debates. I didn't click on news stories.

In 2008, I had to pay attention, because I was a newspaper reporter.

When President Obama was inaugurated, I watched him and his wife dance on a hospital waiting room television. I was covering a story about a women who was flown to the Mayo Clinic with a disease that eventually ended up being named after her. (When she was flown home to die a year later, I was there, too.)

This time around, this election, I am not a newspaper reporter. I don't have to pay attention to both sides, and I choose not to.

I knew, with 100 percent of my being, that I do not live in a country where Donald Trump would be elected president.

Well...oops.

On election night, I had a hankering that he would win Florida pretty early in the night. I considered the race over around 11 p.m., and went to sleep knowing that my candidate wasn't likely to win.

I started Googling Trump's stance on things.

Abortion. Against, expect in the cause of rape, incest, or if the mother's life is in danger.

Just because I'm a Democrat does not mean I'm "for abortion." I am not "for abortion."

I don't think abortion should be used as a form of birth control. Ever.

Here's where I get hung up, though. I don't think it's my job to tell another woman what to do with her body.

In a hypothetical world where abortion is only legal in cases of rape, who gets to decide if a woman is raped? A large portion of rapes are not reported to law enforcement. If a woman doesn't want to raise her rapist's child, does she have to go in front of a judge to get an abortion? A jury?

Who gets to decide that? More over, who actually wants to decide that?

(For what it's worth, no, a woman's body doesn't have ways of "shutting that down." Let's not even go there.)

Immigration. Trump says he'll deport illegal aliens who have committed crimes in this country.

Well, that's better than deporting everyone who is here illegally, I suppose.

But what crimes are worth deportation? Is not paying child support considered a crime? If so, does deporting someone to a third-world country really going to solve the problem of the mother not getting money from the father (or vice versa)?

No, it doesn't solve that.

It doesn't actually solve a problem. It just creates another problem.

Speaking of problems, I find it really hard to believe Trump is going to mess up health care more than it's already messed up.

Maybe he'll actually do something to fix it? I have no idea, but I don't think it can get any worse than it is right now. (Knock on wood)

I did not vote for him, but I have no choice but to support him.

I shared a photo on Facebook the day after the election: Wanting someone to fail at the presidency is like wanting the pilot to crash a plane that we're all on.

Maybe he'll be a great president.

I think he deserves that chance.