I got cable just in time for the presidential election, which has dragged on like a lesbian breakup. At first I was mildly entertained by the fact that our country was electing the mentally disabled frat boy next door. I was entertained that America swallowed two former party boys running on staunch anti-drug platforms. Most of all, I was entertained that the media printed their oft-repeated rhetoric, which bore little to no resemblance to their actual voting records.

I voted for Ralph Nader and am at once amused and horrified that his voting bloc has thrown this entire election. My conservative friends told me I wasn’t voting for a real candidate because he didn’t have a chance at winning. My liberal friends shook their fingers at me in a string of long emails, blaming me in advance for the rollback of abortion rights, gay rights, affirmative action, and civilization in general.

I was just sick of voting for the smarter of two stooges, so I applied Molly Ivins’ rule of voting with your heart where you can and your head where you must. Since California was going to Gore, it’s not like I was voting in Florida, for God’s sake.

My niece, however, did vote in Florida. A few days after the election, I called her to check in. Offhandedly, I made a joke about the election. She’s a pro-choice feminist who’s been very cool about gay issues, so I knew we could have a spirited chat about the war in her backyard.

“I think it’s disgusting how this election is being stolen,” she said.

“I totally agree!” I said.

“I think he should just admit that he lost,” she said.

“I’m with you!” I said, then added “Bush is such a yee haw fascist.”

“I like him,” she said. “I voted for Bush.”

I froze.

“You what?”

“I hate Gore” was her only explanation.

“I do too,” I offered, “but that’s no reason to vote for Junior.” When I pressed her about the Supreme Court, she regurgitated the exact line of reasoning that Bush’s press office had devised: A president isn’t the final say on a matter like abortion.

“I like him,” she said. “I think he’s nice.”

That’s when I understood the single woman demographic that had been bandied about in the press. My niece was part of that statistic. An entire group of women, voting for daddy. Ick!

Which set me off on a sanctimonious lecture about a return to Reagan’s Nazi years.

“I don’t think Reagan was a Nazi,” she said.

I fumed, spouting off statistics about AIDS and how many people died before Reagan even said the word in public. I added that Bush had never said the word in public, either.

She actually used the phrase “liberal media” and said that Bush had been misunderstood.

“I need to end this conversation,” I said, then hung up. I was shaking because I was so furious. How could a member of my own family vote against me? How could a pro-choice feminist vote for someone who was poised to water down every one of her hard-won civil rights victories?

I came to several conclusions based on that phone call. A. I’m terrible at discussing politics with someone who doesn’t agree with me. B. Most of my family members don’t agree with me. C. I should probably avoid politics when I talk to family members.

The three youngest members of my extended family voted for Nader, which was heartening. We’re the kids who’d wriggled out from under our military upbringing to embrace the occasional joint and castile soap. We were the ones most likely to “avoid materialism at Christmas” and wear lefty liberal tee shirts. We’re the minority. A few family members voted for Gore, including my mother. But the overwhelming majority voted for Bush. I mean, forget gay rights. These folks are anti-abortion corporate Republicans who believe in school vouchers.

I wrote several long emails to my niece, detailing the horrors of the Reagan/Bush years and pointing her to a number of websites where she could Learn the Truth. I was being thoroughly obnoxious, and after a few days, I relented and sent her an effusive apology. I dread going home for Christmas, because I know that the election will be a natural topic of discussion. I haven’t quite figured out how to approach a conversation about politics with family members without boiling it all down to gay rights. How do you talk about politics without making it a personal attack? How do you make your point without alienating your entire family? How, in the name of God, do you talk to a Republican?

I’ve decided that when I go home, I’m going to try my hand at bipartisan humor. After all, what heterosexual came up with the phrase pregnant chads? If it had been up to a queer, we would have called them dingleberries.