Election Day, Toddler Edition

The wife and I voted in Juneau this morning, about 15 minutes after the polls opened. We brought the kid with us; she’s only two-and-a-half, but she was pretty excited to be there. She joined both of us in our booths for a few seconds each as we filled in the ovals before the optical scanner gobbled them up and — really, I’m just guessing here — erroneously converted them into votes for McCain, Ted Stevens and Don Young. She pitched a smallish fit when she learned that we weren’t going to be able to vote again. I told her if she didn’t pipe down, I was going to have to e-mail John Fund and let him know what was going on. That seemed to do the trick.

In any case, on the drive to day care, she and I had a great chat about the election. She knows about as much about the whole event as I suspect a toddler can absorb, which is to say that she recognizes the candidates’ faces and voices, and she’s made some preliminary assessments of their general temperaments.

“Dad, did you vote?”
“Yes, I voted.”
“Dad, did mommy vote?”
“Yes, she voted.”
“Did you vote for Barack Obama?”
“Yes, I voted for Barack Obama.”
[Long pause]
“John McCain is crabby.”

Let’s hope she’s right.