What was the hardest part of this election cycle for you?

[Sheherezade]

So weird Deebs. We live in the same town and obviously had very different experiences! Most of the people I work with are Republican and the Romney Ryan campaign center is in the center of our town! We must run in different crowds (somewhat). I obviously also know democrats in town as well but here, Romney won every precinct and one by a 2-1 margin. I wouldn't be at s afraid to be a Romney voter here. My guess is it might be age dependent? You hang with a younger crowd. If do, things will be a changing here as the years move on.

[Sheherezade]

Do=so

[Vanquisher]

I think it all depends on what perspective you are coming from, and where you live. I heard a lot of negative things on my facebook page from Romeny supporters. My neighborhood was all Romney signs. My kids were also told they were stupid to vote for Obama. My FIL and DH had a huge fight about it and FIL said that we were stupid to vote for Obama. I'm sorry, but my DH is the smartest person I know.

From where I sit, I see a lot of negative rhetoric on BOTH sides, so lets not pretend that just one side had all the ugliness. My fb felt especially bad, probably, because most of my family and DH's family and people we grew up with are Mormons who live in Utah.

The hardest thing this election cycle was facebook and iMSN right now along with every single second the t.v. was on a political add was playing. Swing states are not all their cracked up to be.

[Sheherezade]

I realize Deebs was probably talking about her larger circle of friends now after re reading. I was just surprised at the Democratic characterization

[BonBon]

I want to be clear that when I'm talking about partisan posts, I'm talking about both sides.

[Deebs]

Angie - you have to remember, most of my friends don't live here. They're in Chicago, Atlanta, St. Louis, Columbus, etc. Many of these interactions were via phone, email, or FB. My neighborhood seems pretty split, BUT I think we are the neighborhood transplants move to. I did notice in town, the signs seemed to be much more Romney-Ryan leaning. So, I don't know if it's that I'm oh-so-much younger (cause I do have a lot of friends who are a little bit older than I am and they seemed split, too), but that I am in frequent personal contact with people from other regions.

I also have to vent about this - the POST election FB posting by my friends who are card carrying democrats. It was more the kind of "in your face" enthusiasm. Why be like that? One of my friends went into kind of a rant that she was so happy because "MY" president won (in quotes and capital letters). I thought he was "our" president who was going to unify the world. Right? Well, that's not unifying. It was just irritating. But again, I think it was more of my friends who are very left leaning, and not those in the middle. I really believe that at this point, no matter who won, we need to just get excited and get behind him because there is a lot of work to be done! I think everyone realizes that the last four years have been really tough. Obama realizes and says that. I wasn't really thrilled with his campaign slogan, but I think now is the time for everyone to find somewhere in there hearts to go "forward." We have no other choice.

[alison]

The bullying makes me sad. In downtown there is a panhandler whose sign read "Help me or I'll vote for Romney."

I read FB posts and took them with a grain of salt. Two of my friends from school go at it, with a good friend of mine posting "4 more years of Kenyan Socialism" on my other friend's wall after Obama won.

[BonBon]

Two of my friends from school go at it, with a good friend of mine posting "4 more years of Kenyan Socialism" on my other friend's wall after Obama won.

Ugh. I hope it was good natured ribbing.

[alison]

The dem friend of mine posted that! Forgot to mention that.

[Sheherezade]

@Deebs - I realized you were speaking more broadly after I'd already posted via Tapa. I don't know how to take those down or edit easily!!

[Phoebe]

Honestly, the commercials and my child harassing me about who I was voting for. Living in Indiana, we were bombarded by ads promoting the insensitive, ridiculous comments made by US Senate candidate, Richard Murdock. I didn't want to think about what he said nor hear about it on every other ad leading up to the campaign. My fifth grade daughter was very interested in my candidate selection for president. I don't like to talk politics so I didn't want her blabbing to all her classmates who I would vote for. I told her the day of the election, and she was very distraught because of what some of her friends had said about the candidates. Also, I didn't appreciate getting campaign calls at 9:30pm.

I was either lucky or oblivious because I don't recall seeing seething political remarks on FB. It probably helps that I don't participate in those discussions.

[Sheherezade]

My Facebook has been fine too - I've only got one friend that posts very partisan stuff. Easy to ignore. I try not to engage.

[scarlett09]

1. Facebook. I'm somewhere in the middle (socially liberal, fiscally conservative). I could not believe some of the vitriol, the immature comments and thoughts that came from my friends there. And some of them are academic deans, administrators, teachers, etc. All very left-leaning, so they would say things like "you hate (gays, women, immigrants, etc.) if you vote for Romney" or "don't set our country back 50 years". The comments last night and today were ridiculous. Smug, self-righteous winners "the right person won" and losers who said things like "praying for this country." What upset me the most are the "praying" comments - are you praying for those who voted for Obama to see the error of their ways? I believe that praying should cover people's general well-being and not their personal decisions. Your prayers for my soul because I voted for Obama are not appreciated, I should not be made to feel that an appeal to a higher power needs to be made because my opinion is different than yours (and apparently those of that higher power). Prayers for this citizens of this country to stop being so hateful to one another over opinions, not facts, are the best place to start.

2. Politics in general. I really don't know what was going on during the last 2 weeks of the election cycle. We had to prepare for, survive, and clean up after a hurricane. But politics managed to insert itself into the disaster we are currently experiencing. WHO THE F CARES if the governor praised Obama for the job he was doing in regard to storm cleanup? It's not like Romney was going to win here anyway. Nobody here cared, as they had no power, no water, no heat. And then people saying that the "hurricane only helped Obama politically"??! F YOU!! Look, I was a political science major, I get that in a certain context, it can be discussed. But to bring it up, while people in this area still do not have power or heat, and in some cases clean water, have no homes to return to, and are panicking about a nor'easter?? Just. leave. it. the. f. alone. Until like January or something. Do not talk about it now. The areas majorly affected by the storm are blue states anyway. Why did people even need to bring this up?? How about focusing on why we can't get enough gas down here fast enough, or how we need to build more effectively along our coastlines and estuaries?

3. Apathy. Maybe its because I feel like this election took 2 years? Or that I felt torn between the two candidates? But I just wasn't excited this time around. Perhaps its because there never seems to be any real discourse about the issues. It takes 3 minutes for discussions about facts and solutions to dissolve into pissing matches about who was more wrong about something that happened several years ago. Still sorting out my feelings on this one (both my apathy and this election in general).

As a friend said on FB, now I can go back to finding out uses for Hidden Valley Ranch dressing and which car dealership I should buy my new wheels from. Oh, and whether or not hockey is going to come back.

[Meenah]

I'm with Scarltett!!!

[diggitydot]

I have FB friends of all political persuasions and the discussions we've had there have been pretty similar to the ones here; even when we disagree, it's not ugly. The only gloating/sore loser kinda of comments have come from DH's hillbilly faction of the family. They're kind of assholes about anything that veers from their myopic world views and they include both dems and GOP.