I'm so depressed

I'm so depressed about the election that I don't know how to get through the day.

Basically, I am worried about how my life--because that's all I can really speak for, my little sliver of reality--will be directly affected if McCain and his completely wing-nut, unqualified running-mate (clearly chosen in a cynical, sensationalizing attempt to get certain voter demographics to the polls) happen to win in November. Here are some ways I can think of:

My daughter and her classmates will not learn sex-ed in high school, as I did. (And by the way, though this is embarrassing to admit, this knowledge did not make me go out and have teen sex, I was a band geek! So maybe if conservatives don't want teens to be sexually active, they should encourage them all to join marching band--but not color guard, they were definitely doing it...)

As a young woman she won't have any access to contraceptives because people will be in power who believe that using a contraceptive is the same as abortion.

My boyfriend will be sent back to Iraq, or to one of the other places McCain will go to war with, and my daughter and I will be left alone for 12-18 months (for one tour? several tours?) or forever.

Nothing will be done to reduce our dependence on oil, safeguard against environmental calamity, and preserve endangered wildlife. People will be tooling around in helicopters shooting at deer.

I wish I did not get so upset about politics. It's just people spouting different viewpoints, and it doesn't mean that everything they envision will come to pass. But it feels to me like the country is going to hell, we continue to be in a war that the majority of Americans do not support, and that people still don't want change, they want the Bush Regime in a new (even more ignorant and dangerous, bouffant-hairstyled) package.

But to get back to the serious points here: it will devastatingly impact me if we elect another war-hungry president and I lose my partner to war, either temporarily or permanently (by the way, has anyone seen the very moving, elegant HBO documentary, "Alive Day," that was made about returning Iraq vets who have lost arms, legs, etc.?). It will devastatingly impact me, not to mention everyone else (doesn't this country support Roe V. Wade by some kind of majority, still...?) if women's reproductive freedoms (including access to contraceptives, for Pete's sake) are eliminated. So much seems at stake. How can my own father be on the fence about who to vote for? He's a brilliant, educated person, but he is genuinely unsure, suspicious of both candidates, considering casting a vote for McCain even when McCain's inflexible policies may deprive his granddaughter of her father. I don't understand how there can be any ambiguity, for anyone who is thoughtful, sensitive, and has been paying any attention at all for the past 8 years. And yet, McCain is up in the polls.

Here is a youtube video for anyone unclear about McCain's intentions and how seriously we should take them:

http://www.youtube.com/swf/l.swf?video_id=PdJUCU1UH2w&rel=0&eurl=http