Clear as a bell this election-day morning here along California’s northern coast with a half moon hung high in the heavens — the sound of the Pacific rolls easily to the ears.
Not so across the US as polling stations open and Americans ready themselves to press the lever, bringing to an end a long, ugly ride.

And boiling down to the undecided voter: “In reality, I’m actually just a spectacular dolt who doesn’t have the remotest understanding of how this country’s political system works, or really what the hell I’m doing in general. However, I do care about the issues, in my way,” he added. “I’m just really, really stupid. Like, really stupid.”

How else to explain how tight this presidential race when one of the guys running is completely unhinged.

(Illustration found here).

Ever since Michele Bachmann won the Iowa straw poll way back yonder — August of 2011 — and the mis-matched GOP freaks started their crazed gallop to the primaries, and all those Republican debates where the most-insane got the most coverage, this presidential election cycle has morphed into a hate-fest.
In all my years of trying to pay attention to at least the race for president — the first being Nixon/Kennedy — there’s never been a campaign so one-sided ugly as this one — the Tea Party-influenced GOP has become nothing more than a turgid wall to sanity, blocking, obstructing and lying about everything under the sun.
How this race dissolved into a so-called “dead heat” is beyond the imagination.
Anyone with any bit of walking around sense, and half-ass keeps up with current events, should be able to recognize Mitt Romney as a dim bulb with a shitload of different on/off switches.
And to say President Obama the last four years has been a let-down is a way-way understatement — he’s nowhere near the worst, but he’s got to be the most-disappointing president in US history, from Wall Street (WTF — Summers/Geithner! just to name the ugliest), to the secret drone wars, to the way-back-away from marijuana legislation, to being to timid to the foul Republican Congress, and on, and on…
But still, he’s like 100-trillion times better than Romney.

And the entire near-if-not-total criminal Republican party:

As has been well-documented, Republicans have stepped up efforts across the country to restrict early voting, as in Ohio and Florida, which disproportionately affect African-Americans and others with less job flexibility.
Similarly, at least a dozen states have tried, with varying success, to impose new voter ID requirements, the effect of which is to make it disproportionately harder for African-Americans, Hispanics, students and the poor elderly to vote.
At least some officials, like those in Pennsylvania, openly bragged that the goal of these laws was to ensure Republican victories.

Also this Republican lady arrested Friday in Nevada for trying to vote twice:

The arrest came on the last day of early voting in Nevada and four days before Tuesday’s presidential election.
Larry Lomax, Clark County registrar of voters, said Rubin is a registered Republican.
In his 15 years with the Election Department, Lomax said, he has not seen a voter fraud arrest.
Other incidents have been investigated, but most cases ended up to be seniors who didn’t realize they voted, he said.
“It is my belief there was (intent).” Lomax said.

No shit, sherlock.

Despite the millions and millions of dollars spent and all the loud noise, the race is still close.
Maybe it’s just in the perception.
Nate Silver, the arithmetic-induced poll-watcher at the New York Times, pumps a gambler’s bit this morning to establish a bottom line:

All of this leaves Mr. Romney drawing to an inside straight.
I hope you’ll excuse the cliché, but it’s appropriate here: in poker, making an inside straight requires you to catch one of 4 cards out of 48 remaining in the deck, the chances of which are about 8 percent.
Those are now about Mr. Romney’s chances of winning the Electoral College, according to the FiveThirtyEight forecast.
As any poker player knows, those 8 percent chances do come up once in a while.
If it happens this year, then a lot of polling firms will have to re-examine their assumptions — and we will have to re-examine ours about how trustworthy the polls are.
But the odds are that Mr. Obama will win another term.

This time tomorrow…but from here that seems so far, far away.