The franchise wars

And you thought you had ethical dilemmas:

As Isaac Pollak, an ardent Republican, kissed his wife goodbye before heading out on a business trip to Asia several years ago, he handed her his absentee ballot for the coming presidential election and asked her to mail it.

It was a real dilemma," says Ms. Pollak, 58 years old, a student in a doctoral program in social welfare who lives in Manhattan. "I decided to do the right thing."

Ms. Pollak threw the ballot away.

She not only thinks denying her husband his vote was "the right thing," she's not embarrassed to talk about it openly, let alone ashamed. Man, that is one bent voter.

Sometimes I think political commentators, including me, make a little too much about the "bitter partisan divide" in this country. It's true that I've become a little less tolerant of politiical claptrap from strangers or casual aquaintances, but my friends and family can still talk about politics without going around the bend the way Ms. Pollak did. We even joke about "canceling each others' votes out," and we generally keep our "how dumb can you be to believe such nonsense?" thoughts to ourselves. We still have them, mind you; we just don't say them.