Keller @ Large: Nothing To Fear After This Election Ends

BOSTON (CBS) - The results of the new WBZ-TV, WBZ NewsRadio, UMass Amherst poll of the presidential race in New Hampshire aren't pretty.

This has been one of the ugliest, most polarizing elections in modern times, and the negativity is pervasive.

No one - not the candidates, not politicians in general, certainly not the news media - is going to come out of this with more favorable public perceptions of them.

But let me see if I can persuade you that this half-empty glass is really half full.

Even after all the talk about a "rigged" election that might drag on past election day with legal challenges, almost 75-percent of respondents to a national USA Today-Suffolk poll say they expect a peaceful transfer of power.

Despite rumors of a potential Donald Trump vs. Joe Biden fistfight out behind the gym, which would almost certainly send both men to the hospital, history suggests there will be little or no violence in reaction to the outcome. More than half of those polled said they were concerned about that, but that's a far cry from actually expecting it to happen.

Unfortunately, both the candidates and the media sometimes get caught up in the sensationalism of the rhetoric and wind up scaring people.

It's been 83 years since Franklin Delano Roosevelt said "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."

Today, that seems a more relevant warning than ever.