Everybody take a deep breath and relax on election day

■"No Matter What Happens, Relax," op-ed by George F. Will, Washington Post, 2 November 2004, p. A21.

■"One bright spot amid dirty tricks, paranoia: Early voting went well," by Laura Parker, USA Today, 2 November 2004, p. 5A.

Will's op-ed reminds me why I still like to read the man: he's a great historian on America's past. Here's the key bits:

If, for the fourth consecutive election, neither candidate wins a popular vote majority, relax. There were four consecutive such elections from 1860 to 1892 . . .

If today's election produces vast consequences from slender margins, relax. This is not unusual . . . In 1968 a switch of 53,034 votes in New Jersey, New Hampshire and Missouri would have denied Richard Nixon an electoral vote majority and, because George Wallace won 46 electoral votes, the House probably would have awarded the presidency to Hubert Humphrey.

If George W. Bush loses, relax. Turbulence is normal. Since 1900, not including Bush, there have been 18 presidents, of whom only five served a full eight years or more. Only 11 of the 42 presidents before Bush served two consecutive terms.

At the dinner I attended last night to discuss PNM, a lot of angst was raised about the red state/blue state polarization of American politics. My answer was that this was not that unusual if you look back over the length of American political history. Plus, when you look at what we are so jacked up about concerning the Supreme Court, that cluster of issues is awfully narrow and removed from much of daily life (the nexus of abortion, stem cells, etc.). This is not so much a hugely divided electorate but one that squabbles incessantly over relatively small issues (historically speaking) on the margin.

Yes, this is probably a fairly dirty election, but I, like Laura Parker of USA Today see that bright spot being the great success of early voting. I think that's the future: something more like a month-long voting period during which half vote, leaving the other half (the same people who turn in their tax forms on 15 April) to conduct the idiotic mad scramble on election day.

This is a real improvement that helps more to vote, so I choose focus on that today.