Fingers crossed.

The weather here in St. Louis is cold and rainy. Just miserable. It's just the sort of weather that will swing a midterm election to the Republicans. I went to vote this morning. I aggravated my ankle again over the weekend while gargoyle watching (see my personal blog Life After Shocks). So, I had to walk eight blocks to get to the poling station, a community center. Fortunately, I got to do a little shopping for necessities while I was there.

My state, Missouri, will have very limited impact on the nationwide results. We have neither the governor nor a senator in a race. For most other states, however, if there is one midterm election Democrats need to vote in, it's this one. If the senate turns Republican, as the odds are saying it will, we might anticipate a crisis. Also, if they capture the senate after what they've done, and haven't done, since 2012, truly the connections among the voting booth, morality and justice have been cut.

The Republicans now can't win the popular vote, and their strategy for holding on to power is to selectively suppress the vote and gerrymander. The conservative majority on the SCOTUS has given its approval to both. Apparently, SCOTUS conservatives think of the Gilded Age and Jim Crow not only as the good ol' days, but as exactly what the Founders had in mind. As a result, perhaps seven million people have been disenfranchised this election. If that doesn't make Democratic voters angry enough to show up at the polls, then the Democrats are truly a party of losers. Fact is, reversing all the damage will only get harder in subsequent elections.

At least this morning I saw some sign that voters are taking this election seriously. The turnout looked quite good despite the rain. There was actually a line. The number of votes tallied in the paper machine read 82, and there's was probably an equal amount of electronic votes.

So, I'm cautiously optimistic that the Democrats might retain the senate, and get the majority of governors. I'll see after my writers' meeting tonight.