This Tuesday’s election will be the first after the voodoo spun by the Bush administration has lost its mojo. After 9/11, the Bushies spun this strange magic, part fear, part twisted jingoism, that kept the public in some kind of zombie trance.

Our lowest moment came in the spring of 2003, when Bush scored a 70 percent approval rating. I was really worried that America had lost its way. What? He just plunged us into this tragic mistake, and we’re cheering him? But his voodoo was strong.

Remember the “terror alerts,” in which the color changed every few weeks? It was right out of Robespierre, the 18th century Frenchmen who led the Committee of Public Safety, yet whose document “Justification for the Use of Terror” caused heads to roll, literally. But Robespierre, with all his affection for the guillotine, loped off about 270 heads. Bush’s Iraq quagmire is already responsible for ten times the number of deaths — and that’s just counting Americans.

Now, with the cold water of experience in our face, we’re awake again. We see him for what he is, a tragic failure. It’s time to vote against him, and the best way to limit his power is to have a Democratic House and Senate. I can’t wait until Tuesday.