It was a sunny day, like this day, when 70,000 people stood in the street that leads from the Capitol to the University in my home town. Bruce Springsteen was singing, but I was mad that he was singing some silly old fotched-up political song instead of 'Born To Run,' which I thought the tall guy next to him, John Kerry, actually was.

It was the day before the presidential election, four years ago. Folks were handing their cameras to my son, who's 6'3", so he could take pictures for them over the heads of the rest of us, the short and fervent.

I still have the pictures.

It looked like today. It was warm, with just a snap of fall in the air.

And people in my city, which has been called 25 square miles, surrounded by reality, were sure John Kerry had it knocked... that no one could continue to approve of the war and the man who missed Osama Bin Ladin by just one country... that no one had forgotten the scandal of the hanging chads and the stealing of the presidency ("I'm Al Gore, former President Elect of the United States").

And two days later, I was talking on the phone to my friend Sarah (no relation) and she was talking about how she could not get her hair to cooperate because the water in her well was either too hard or too soft and George W. Bush was president again, as he has been, it seems, for most of my life, and all of three of my children's lives. And I was giving opinions on vinegar rinses and wondering if I had time for a session on the treadmill and that is the way life goes. I kept thinking, things are only going to get worse, a whole lot worse, and not just for our hair.

But my friend Sarah wans't that upset.

So I thought, maybe I'm losing my mind.

And now I think the same thing again. Sarah Palin's got a gun and an attitude and now John McCain's sweeping the news, leading the polls and it feels just like that day in the street when a whole bunch of people thought a few basic things were going to change.

And maybe I'm losing my mind.

I thought that when it came to hatred in American, there was nothing like a damne, but apparently I'm wrong. A dame who says some really wacko sabre-rattling, God-fearing, poor-hating, boot-strapping things is apparently tolerable, as a friend on a discussion group I'm part of recently told me her neighbor, a kindly Asian woman, explained that no one could trust a black man.

Am I losing my mind?

The essential question is, do we really, actually give a damn?

Are we like my friend, Mike, who voted for Ronald Reagan twice because he thought it was his best chance to witness Armageddon?

Do we really think they're ALL scoundrels and liars and it's not better here than anywhere else, and we'll just have to tighten our belts and pay $9 a gallon for gas and $25,000 a semester for colllege and $20,000 a year in health insurance premiums if we're self-employed and half of that if we're not? My insuror just told me that no further coverage would be offered me in the area of bone surgery, because I had to have a knee replacement after an accident. Guess the next time I fall into a concrete tank, I'm on my own.

Am I losing my mind?

I don't care about Sarah Palin's gender or her hair, or her kid or her kid's kid. She's no more suited to be Vice-President of the United States than I am. I'm better suited. I have thought about the war in Iraq. I do know how many Americans have lost their homes to foreclosure. 

I don't care about John McCain's cruel comments about Chelsea Clinton's appearance as a child. Chelsea Clinton is a beautiful, powerful young woman who'll be making the world a better place when John McCain is losing his spectacles in the couch. He's a good fellow. Russ Feingold is my friend, and he says he's a good fellow. He says stupid things but we all say stupid things, although thousands of people arent usually writing them down. He was a brave soldier, 40 years ago. But he lives in a different American than the America I live in, where people are trying to hang on to two jobs and one house. Sarah Palin lives in a different America than I do. She lives in the wild west, where people pray hard and hang 'em high, where the men are hard-livin' and the women ... well, the women are tolerant.

We all have to say that Sarah Palin's election will make history. It will. John McCain's cynical backdoor stroke of genius has strapped us all to the wall. The headlines are no more filled with snide references about the black Jesus. Sarah's smiling from the cover of every magazine, an Office Depot Britney, and my friends are begining to wilt like the last roses -- which is what Progressives of every denomination do when conservatives pull a rabbit out of their hats.

Do we really want to live with the health care system we have now or, as John McCain suggests, cut programs so that we can keep more of our tax dollars to pay for our own health care, like my $40,000 surgery?

Or amI losing my mind?

Do we really want to sell houses for half of what they're worth to buy double-wides we can afford so that one of the three kids can get an education?

Or am I losing my mind?

Do we want to sent National Guard personnel who wanted to deliver blankets to flood victims back for their fourth tours in an undeclared war?

Or am I losing my mind?

Do we want an amendment to the Constitution that will make it a crime for a 13-year-old pregnant by her mother's rapist boyfriend to stop that pregnancy before it destroys two children's lives? 

Or am I losing my mind?

Do we believe in hocus-pocus when a man gets up and tells the moving story of the best years of his life instead of our hope for the best years of ours and consider that a policy speech?

Or am I losing my mind?

I'm just a writer. I write novels. I write essays. I live in as small a town as Sarah Palin. I'm from the Midwest. I'm not sophisticated. But I think I can see flim-flam and falsity masquerading as government as well as the next person of average intelligence. I thought the young were inspired and were going to rock the vote and they were fed up with the same old, same old and that's why they didn't want Hillary, though I did -- especially now -- and that they were going to bring change home and make a difference.

But I'm fairly sure I could be losing my mind.