I don’t know about anybody else, but our house is wired for sound and has been for weeks as one of us was always flying out the door to attend a local political rally or to work for the local presidential campaign office.

The five of us, on any one occasion, stuffed envelopes, signed up people for rides to the polls and talked up our side to strangers. At home, surrounded by the political signs and buttons of our candidate, we watched the debates together, then engaged in our own debates around the kitchen table. We e-mailed political commentary to each other, watched the news shows, guffawed at Saturday Night Live. Even the 11-year-old got into the act, making official phone calls with a sweet child’s voice that would make anybody melt, change their vote and/or sometimes hang up on him.

Maybe this is the way it is in a family where the father is a political scientist. My kids have been eating politics with their oatmeal since they were born.

Or maybe this is Election 2008.

For a political rally in Cleveland on Sunday night, our family drove 45 minutes, then took a train another 20, then stood in line three hours to watch a screen image of our candidate and a famous rock celebrity in the rain. With us were not just tens of thousands of voting-age adults, but their children, sporting and carrying signs, buttons, flags and T shirts along with their Strawberry Shortcake backpacks.

“We wanted our kids to be part of history,” said Jack Prause, carrying one of his two tired daughters on his shoulders after the event.

My friend’s 9th-grade son in Columbia , S.C. , had a backyard basketball game a few weeks ago. It was the McCains against the Obamas. The other day she found a piece of paper in his jeans with a bar graph comparing the Obama and McCain tax plans, so he could debate more accurately with his friends. “My kids are really into the election this year,” she said.

Another friend’s 7-year-old in Atlanta waxed concern the other day that Obama’s health plan “doesn’t give as much money as McCain’s,” while her 5-year-old said “Obama is the Lord.”

“We had to correct her on that one,” my friend said.

Of course the political news coming out of Neverland isn’t all Popsicles and Care Bears.

A friend in Kent, Oh., helping her 10-year-old dress out for hockey, overheard one kid tell another in the locker room: “Obama is a baby killer.” “Well, McCain’s just going to raise your taxes,” the other kid said, “Hey, guys, let’s focus on hockey,” the woman had to interject.

In another unnamed city, trick-or-treaters had to deal with the agony of political intolerance even as they were only trying to load up with Milky Ways. “Your parents voting for so-and-so?” apparently the woman doling out candy would say as she opened her door on Halloween. If they said no to her candidate of choice? “No candy for you,” she would say, and close the door.

For weeks, we adults have been riveted, hypnotized, captured – crazed, I might say - by what arguably is the most exciting presidential campaign in U.S. history.

What rivets adults, of course, rivets children.

I know our family will be no less focused tonight, as we host an Election Night party with as many friends – young and old – as we can cram in our tiny house.

But first, my 20-year-old will vote in his first presidential election, after which he and his sister will be assigned to a neighborhood where they will ask who needs a ride to the polls.

My husband will work at headquarters, on the phones, asking a similar question.

As for me, I will drive college students to the polls, my 11-year-old riding shotgun.

I know he’ll end up reading Harry Potter when he gets bored.

But like Jack Prause said: It’s history in the making.

And we are helping make it.

- Debra-Lynn