It's looking like rain all day tomorrow here in the Richmond, VA area, and by the look of the national weather map a number of crucial states could be soaked as well. Like everyone, I've been worried about the potential for long lines and confusion at polling places, and that concern rises exponentially with steady rainfall.
For those of you in similar weather circumstances, we can't fight Mother Nature, but we can still do something.
Anyone with the means and the time, buy up as many cheap umbrellas, raincoats and ponchos as you can tonight . I hate that we're a nation swimming in cheap plastic crap, but, dammit, tomorrow we can make the crap work for us!
If you've taken the day off for the campaign, take part of the morning to swing by a polling place where you know there will be long lines, and hand those babies out. In the case of Richmond, I'll be heading to my old neighborhood, Church Hill, where I waited three hours to vote in 2004. I can only imagine what the lines will be like tomorrow. Encourage people to pass the umbrellas and things on when they finish voting, and that will at least help to make a few folks more comfortable as they wait.
To avoid any murky electioneering questions, station yourself well away from the line and hand them to people as they approach or remove any Obama pins, stickers, etc. before approaching those already lined up.
Good luck, everyone!
and on the occasion of making the best out of a worrisome situation, a little Longfellow that I read to my three year old on rainy days:
How beautiful is the rain!
After the dust and heat,
In the broad and fiery street,
In the narrow lane,
How beautiful is the rain!
How it clatters along the roofs,
Like the tramp of hoofs
How it gushes and struggles out
From the throat of the overflowing spout!
Across the window-pane
It pours and pours;
And swift and wide,
With a muddy tide,
Like a river down the gutter roars
The rain, the welcome rain!
[...]
Thus the Seer,
With vision clear,
Sees forms appear and disappear,
In the perpetual round of strange,
Mysterious change
From birth to death, from death to birth,
From earth to heaven, from heaven to earth;
Till glimpses more sublime
Of things, unseen before,
Unto his wondering eyes reveal
The Universe, as an immeasurable wheel
Turning forevermore
In the rapid and rushing river of Time.
UPDATE: Just got back from one of the many Dollar Stores in the area and picked up all the rain ponchos they had on the floor. 44 packs of two ponchos, so 88 people will be a little more dry tomorrow. Apparently someone had been there before me with the same thing in mind and had cleaned them out of umbrellas. Awesome!
Yes we can (keep voters dry)!