Good government types have complained for decades about low-voter turnout. Well, now they have got their higher turnout. All it took was : 1) a previous election decided by a split Supreme Court decision, 2) an opposition party that spent the last four years nurturing a righteous hatred of the president, 3) an economy that could not protect our best manufacturing jobs and risks not being able to protect our best information technology jobs, 4) the slaughter of 3,000 American citizens on our own soil by foreign religious fanatics backed up by hundreds of millions of their co-religionists, 5) a bloody and inconclusive war fought for reasons that half the country couldn't understand, 6) a president who could not explain his vital war beyond the level of repeated slogans, 7) an anti-Christian bigoted cultural elite who run most of the national organs of communication (Hollywood, the music industry, New York publishing, the television networks, the major newspapers) joining with the opposition party in personally demeaning the president for three years, 8) a billion dollars spent by special interests and foreign billionaires, 9) a quarter billion dollar industrial-strength two-party voter registration and get out the vote effort, 10) a president with a stubborn, in-your-face, attitude about policy and values that maximized the frustration and anger of the opposition, 11) a verbally sneaky challenger who accused the incumbent of everything under the sun (and several things beyond the purview of our solar system) and 12) a level of European intervention not seen since the French and Indian War or the War of 1812 (in both of which, the level of intervention constituted a formal state of war with America.

 When not much is seen to be at stake, only the solid citizens come out to vote. But when, as now, much -- perhaps all -- is seen to be at stake, the more fluid citizens flow into the election booths. While they may not bring much political knowledge or historic memory with them, they bring a passion that almost deranges the electoral process.

 The national psyche might not be able to take their unstable presence in every election. And if things calm down, we may not see them again for quite a while. But I am just radical enough to believe that whatever their effect on the outcome of the election, the system needs a good jolt once in a while. Those of us in the political class need the stuffings knocked out of our smug complacency every generation or so. And, by God, I feel unsmug as I write this election morning.