The phone keeps ringing off the hook. The mail box is stuffed to the limit. Lawn signs have popped up like weeds. TV commercials tout candidates like cars, all shiny and powerful, except they also describe the competition as total wrecks. It must be election season! This may not be a Presidential election year but it’s one of the hottest, with an unusual number of Congressional and Gubernatorial seats in contentious races. It’s hard to turn off the incessant intrusion into our daily lives. What a perfect time to park in a quiet corner with a good book – about politics. You’ll see that the more things change the more they stay the same. Here are some recommended novel and non-fiction reads:
How to Win an Election – Quintus Tullius Cicero (64 B.C.)
The Prince – Niccolo Machiavelli (1532)
Democracy – Henry Adams (1880)
The Last Hurrah – Edwin O’Connor (1956)
All the King’s Men – Robert Penn Warren (1990)
Washington, D.C.: A Novel – Gore Vidal (2000)
The Boys on the Bus – Thomas Crouse (2003)

Don’t forget to cast your ballot. Your vote is as important as everyone else’s – unless you don’t vote; then your vote is less important than everyone else’s. Your absence simply gives your power to the opposition who does vote. If you don’t like any of this cycle’s candidates, vote for the least objectionable. Then, begin the day after the election to find and support one you do want to vote for in the next cycle.