This Week's Sneak Peek

This week's post-election cartoon has already been drawn -- although I'm preparing any necessary fixes in case there are any unexpected developments.

Ten years ago, Chris and I were planning a vacation abroad that would coincide with the November election, so I proposed to my editor two alternate cartoons to celebrate or lament the election result. He nixed that proposal on the grounds that I would be wasting my time drawing one of the cartoons.

Little did either of us suspect that I would have wasted my time drawing both cartoons. Ten years ago, of course, was the Bush v. Gore election -- which wouldn't be decided until well after I got back from vacation. Neither the proposed cartoon of a Gore victory nor its alternative cartoon about a Bush victory could have been printed that first week in November except as a "Dewey Defeats Truman" update.

I should wrap this post up by reminding you, dear reader, to vote tomorrow because every vote counts. Bush v. Gore, however, isn't a very good example of that point. So instead, I'll repeat one of the stories my dad tells about elections.

Back when we lived in Delaware, long before I would be able to remember political matters, Dad was a young chemist working at Dow Chemical and raising a new family. He didn't much like either of the candidates for high office one particular year, but he has always believed in voting, so he wrote his own name in. Mom was not feeling well -- she might have been several months pregnant with one of my siblings depending which election it was. At any rate, she didn't get out to vote that year.

The next day, the Wilmington newspaper reported the election results, all the way down to showing that my dad got two votes.

He never found out who cast that other vote.