palin visits shippensburg u.

Or she's going to visit. We're told. A little after 4pm. But thousands are already waiting. The line to get in the field house formed around 11am. Now it stretches north at least the length of a city block then around the Luhrs Performing Arts Center and west the length of another city block. Everyone lining up already has a ticket. The line is orderly. Very straight.

Our field house seats less than 5,000. But there is to be no sitting. No bleachers. No chairs. I don't know how many our field house stands.

A small group of Obama supporters have congregated on the basketball courts across the street from the field house.

News trucks from CNN and all the local network affiliates have made a parking lot of the grass.

Unmarked silver-gray police cars with large (compensating) antennae patrol the streets.

It's not a warm day to be standing outside. Forty-four degrees with 30 mph winds. Wind chill of 34 degrees. A chance of rain. Some of these people will have waited outside four hours to get into this rally. Four hours. To listen to a political figure they already know they're going to vote for.

An undetermined number of the people waiting outside will wake up tomorrow with the sniffles. Some will get the flu. They'll stay home from work. School. They'll have to drag themselves out of bed to vote next Tuesday. They'll cough on their ballots. On their punch tools. Others will get sick. Some of us already are. Sick. Of. Politics.