This weekend, my girlfriend’s mother came to visit our humble abode on our culturally dense Eastern side of Williamsburg in Brooklyn, NY. During her stay, I was able to revisit New York City with the perspective of a tourist as we perused Time Square, 6^th Avenue, and Broadway Shows. Before her arrival to the city, Dorothy and I had to do some serious cleaning of our apartment. Not because we had to prove that our apartment stays consistently clean all the time, but to show that we have learned basic homemaking skills acquired in our childhood and college years. In the midst of dusting, washing, vacuuming, and removing the gunk from the areas of our five room apartment where gunk tends to congregate, I was not able to watch the Presidential Debate last Wednesday. Fortunately, there is a rectangle block in my pocket that can shoot birds at pigs and check twitter. Using that, I was able to deduct that Mitt Romney did pretty good, Obama did alright, and the debate moderator Jim Lehrer fielded the brunt of frustration built by a month of NFL substitute officiating.

One of the most interesting things about the second election that I will be able to participate in as a legal voter is how far forward technology moves in four years. So the art of campaigning has to drastically change to span the new frontiers in the social world. Maybe this is all just a figment of my 23 year old’s imagination as compared to the nineteen year old’s four years before. So if I am wrong, let that be my disclaimer, but I can say that the atmosphere in which people talk about politics is changing. Stories transcend the 24 hour news cycle and Youtube unlike in 2008.

Using internet memes to paint a caricature of our political figures just like the newspaper cartoons depicting Teddy Roosevelt swinging his big stick to express the jilted journalist’s political beliefs; the social sphere is slowly becoming a friendlier confine to discuss politics. My facebook and twitter feed is much richer with somewhat intellectual political commentary. Whereas four years ago, it would be easy to feel alienated to preach how the opposing candidate has matter in his skull not colored grey. Keep in mind the disclaimer in the previous paragraph about the political literacy of a nineteen year old versus a twenty three year old, the same may apply to the facebook friends of mine of the same age. No matter if you get your news from information, misinformation, editorials, fact-checkers, polls, or comedy pundits, we are all more comfortable to discuss our healthy pessimism.

With the town hall debate next week, I will probably be too busy getting my Halloween costume together to have a chance to watch it.

I think I might go as Psy from “Gangam Style”