For a long while, this election cycle was touted as something new, something that broke all the rules.  Many people said they were excited, for the first time, about casting their vote.  They felt strong candidates were running, and many were excited about the historic campaigns of Clinton and Obama.

And then came months and months of stumping.  Negative ads started to rear their ugly heads (like Putin, apparently). Scandals started to surface.

Before long, I started to hear it.

“Frankly, I think it’s a choice between bad and worse.”

“I hate always having to choose the lesser of two evils.”

This isn’t everyone, of course.  Some people are still ecstatic about the possibilities they see opening up with candidates like Palin or Obama. Others wax enthusiastic about having tireless advocates such as Ralph Nader in the race to offer substantive policy and platform differences and to raise the issue of what candidates should really be doing to earn your confidence and your vote.  But frankly, I’ve heard from a lot of people who are feeling pretty jaded.  What with the accusations flying about wardrobe costs, abuses of the governor’s power, connections to former terrorists, false representations of self or policy, the questionable maverickosity of Maverick McCain, and the generic evasiveness of the politicians, some people are feeling pretty fed up.

‘Tis the season, folks.  Have you picked out your outfit for tomorrow?

Those of you who have not already voted by early or absentee ballot are hopefully heading to the polls tomorrow.  As you go and consider the many issues at stake, give some consideration to food security and agricultural policy as well. These are issues that have far-reaching consequences, as I outlined when covering Michael Pollan’s “Farmer in Chief” article in an earlier post.

Earlier, I also outlined the candidates’ expressed stances on the issues Pollan raised in his letter.  Today, I got a tip from Matt that at least one of the candidates actually read “Farmer in Chief.”  Apparently, Barack Obama referenced Pollan’s open letter in an interview with Joe Klein. An excerpt follows after the jump.

Obama: The biggest problem with our energy policy has been to lurch from crisis to trance. And what we need is a sustained, serious effort. Now, I actually think the biggest opportunity right now is not just gas prices at the pump but the fact that the engine for economic growth for the last 20 years is not going to be there for the next 20, and that was consumer spending. I mean, basically, we turbo-charged this economy based on cheap credit. Whatever else we think is going to happen over the next certainly 5 years, one thing we know, the days of easy credit are going to be over because there is just too much de-leveraging taking place, too much debt both at the government level, corporate level and consumer level. And what that means is that just from a purely economic perspective, finding the new driver of our economy is going to be critical. There is no better potential driver that pervades all aspects of our economy than a new energy economy.

I was just reading an article in the New York Times by Michael Pollen about food and the fact that our entire agricultural system is built on cheap oil. As a consequence, our agriculture sector actually is contributing more greenhouse gases than our transportation sector. And in the mean time, it’s creating monocultures that are vulnerable to national security threats, are now vulnerable to sky-high food prices or crashes in food prices, huge swings in commodity prices, and are partly responsible for the explosion in our healthcare costs because they’re contributing to type 2 diabetes, stroke and heart disease, obesity, all the things that are driving our huge explosion in healthcare costs. That’s just one sector of the economy. You think about the same thing is true on transportation. The same thing is true on how we construct our buildings. The same is true across the board.

For us to say we are just going to completely revamp how we use energy in a way that deals with climate change, deals with national security and drives our economy, that’s going to be my number one priority when I get into office, assuming, obviously, that we have done enough to just stabilize the immediate economic situation. In conversations with folks like Warren Buffet, Larry Summers, and the other people that I’ve been spending time with on this, I described it as we’ve got a boat with a lot of leaks and we need to get it into port. That’s what the financial rescue package is about. But once we get it into port, once the credit markets are functioning effectively, then it’s time for us to go back to the fundamentals of this economy. Now, the one other point I want to make about this, though, we can’t divorce the energy issue from what I believe has to be the dominant political theme underlying everything — the economy, healthcare, you name it. And that is restoring a sense that we’re growing the economy from the bottom up and not the top down.

There you have it.  Obama reads.  And he thinks Pollan talks good sense.  That’s two points in his favor.  Double-check your preferred candidates on the issues tonight before voting tomorrow.  And do vote. While you may not find a candidate that aligns perfectly with every one of your positions on the issues, it is important to cast a vote for the person you think will best lead our country.  After all, democracy doesn’t begin and end with voting.  As citizens, we have the right and responsibility to petition, call, and write to try to sway our representatives’ opinions when they fall short of our expectations.  Certainly we can work to inform the opinions of our president. The president is just one person, fallible.

Tomorrow, let’s vote in someone whom we believe to be capable of helping us forge a better reality for each of us as individuals and for all of us, united as one nation.  Then let’s let our new president know exactly where we’re setting the bar.

That is, after all, exactly what Pollan has done.  As one person, he went public with his views.  He commanded an audience.  He asked the president to listen.  And at least one of the candidates is taking what he’s said into account.

Thanks to Matt and Treehugger for the tip.