The Center for Individual Freedom is not permitted to recommend or endorse candidates for federal office.  We are free to urge you to vote.

Go vote.  This is a consequential election, more so than usual.  The contrast between conservative and liberal values and governing principles has been starkly drawn and could not be more intense, or more meaningful.

It is now urgent that you prepare to vote.

Hydrate often.  Check your medication.  Practice mental endurance.  Have your Election Day suit of armor cleaned.  Familiarize yourself with the specific voting procedures of your polling place so that you will not vote for Pat Buchanan unless intended.

Do not read, listen to or allow anyone to tell you about polls.  Even polling done with the best of intentions is fraught with plus or minus errors, frequently greater than the spread. Polling this close to a volatile election is generally invalid by the time the statistics are compiled, and, more often than not, did not ask the right questions to the appropriate sample of your fellow citizens in the first place.  Polls that do not impose sophisticated screening to at least try to filter out non-voters are virtually worthless unless you are just obsessed with knowing what a bunch of gumbies who answered their phones think.  More polling is done without the best of intentions than with.  Senator Kerry would be the authority on the validity of exit polling.

Do not watch campaign commercials other than to evaluate who is wearing a toupee, has had a facelift, speaks in a voice you cannot bear for two or more years, or some combination thereof.  Campaign commercials are governed by factual standards that would embarrass lying weasels.  The singular standard of stations which air said commercials is green.

Between now and Election Day, answer your telephone only to immediate family members.  Current and former presidents, governors and celebrities are not calling to ask you to lunch, and even if they are, you can be sure they aren't paying.

Be very careful driving until Election Day.  Many candidates like to stand in the road with their entire extended families waving signs at you.  Vehicular homicide, even of a candidate's mother-in-law, is a crime.

Pay zero attention to pundits and media editorials.  Voting is to express your preference, not theirs.  If you listen to most of them, you'll be trying to early vote for Barack Obama for President.  Borat, the brilliant Kazakhstantinople journalist, is more informative, and he's not even from here.

To express your preference, you must exercise due diligence.  Being governed is not easy, and the consequences of bad choices are to you and your family and your country.  That's why taxes, national security, the economy and resolution of illegal immigration are critical issues; they actually mean something to all of us.

Determine what issues are really important to you and apply those appropriately to your field of candidates.  Evaluate the candidates' positions, particularly the language they use to describe them.  Expressing their "concern" is not a commitment.  A commitment to study something diligently generally means "after I leave office."  Bashing an opponent or even a non-opponent does not generally qualify as a policy position.

Character counts, but you won't be able to count much of it.  If you are interested in good governance, you may look favorably at candidates who straightforwardly tell you what they intend to do when they are elected or reelected.

When you do go to vote, show your identification, whether asked for it or not.  You're eligible, registered and proud to be there.  Make it easy and pleasant for the great grandmother who is logging you in.  She's going to have enough trouble with those who aren't entitled to be there.  Yes, there will be some of those, more in some places than others.  Greyhound buses outside polling places are a dead giveaway to that activity.

If you expected electronic voting and are instead handed a clay tablet and a chisel, do not be perturbed, because the judges they are ruling.  Remember that weapons are not allowed in polling places.

After you vote, affix your "I voted" sticker to your forehead and keep it there for the next two years.  Citizens without such stickers unfortunately will not have their free speech rights rescinded until after the 2008 elections, but at least we will be able to identify them.

After you vote, immediately take to your bed.  Do not awaken until after all polls are closed.  Eat a steak.  Pop some corn.  Place candy within arm's reach.  Resume responsible consumption of alcoholic beverages.  Remember that throwing heavy objects at your television will not actually hurt the person on your screen.