It's coming again, and there's no hiding from it! It's inevitable!

This unwelcome season is just as regular as spring and almost as dreadful as the anticipation of storms, tornados, and Kansas summer humidity. It can cause enormous stress within the structure of a loving family and can strain lifelong friendships.

As much as we'd like to avoid it, the inescapable national elections, the new Season of Politics, will be here before we're ready.

National interviews, TV commercials, and opinions both professional and nonprofessional are beginning to air frequently. So far the campaigning has been fairly tolerable and not overly negative, but the worst is yet to come.

In these days of high-tech communication and online accessibility, e-mails supporting candidates and asking for donations begin to circulate long before the elections draw near. That's OK; we're all entitled to our political preferences.

Personally, I prefer to keep an open mind and vote for the person, not the party. If I feel a particular candidate is better suited for the job, he or she gets my vote. Because of my less-than-privileged background, I tend to lean toward Democratic candidates, but it's something I seldom discuss and absolutely refuse to argue. It's a private matter.

I know firsthand how difficult it is to start out with absolutely nothing and work your way up the hard way. The other party seems to prefer keeping only an upper class and a lower class, with no in-between. If they'd been in power my entire adult life, I'd most likely be stuck where I began, in the have-nots, with little hope for a future. Still, Republicans do sometimes get my vote.

Currently, my thoughts are running along these lines:

• Leave Social Security and Medicare alone.
  
• Find other ways to cut the deficit, like fewer travel and entertainment expenses for senators and congress members. Flying coach gets you there just as quickly as first class, minus the luxuries.
  
• I'd rather have my tax dollars go toward helping the less fortunate with medical needs than have the underprivileged check in at their local hospital's emergency room for a runny nose or stubbed toe.
  
• And foremost, why can't we curb the outlandish and excessive costs of anything medical so they're in line with the average rate of inflation? Like oil, gasoline, and financial institutions, those greed-induced profits are entirely too high.

That's not to imply we shouldn't learn about all candidates. How else can we make wise decisions? What I don't like are totally negative criticisms that arrive by e-mail, especially the ones that are only half-true or entirely false. Can't the senders check out their e-mails before they forward them to their entire address book? Or maybe they're so biased they want to believe everything that solidifies their beliefs, and they think the rest of us are just as foolish. But a person needs only to look at any of the reliable nonpartisan sources to learn whether or not political statements are true. Keep in mind, a reliable source is not backed by either political party or a biased media outlet. Sources include www.politifact.com, www.snopes.com, and www.truthorfiction.com.

So, as this unwelcome season draws near, we must prepare ourselves to read, research, then delete—never forwarding political e-mails to friends or relatives. We must reiterate to ourselves each day, "Judge not lest you be judged," "To each his own," and "Consider the source." Then we must learn as much as possible about all the candidates, find the ones whose goals and values are similar to our own, and give them our vote.

That's the key word. Vote! When the time comes, quietly vote for the candidates of your choice. And may the best-qualified candidates win.