Dear Readers,


I now consider this blog to be my Juvenelia. Have fun perusing the archives, and find me at my new haunt, here.

Tuesday, November 04, 2008

I Voted, Did You?

I was so proud to cast my ballot/pull my lever for Barack Obama today.

I boarded the Obama-train early (my college buds and I were obsessed with his 2004 speech. We smoked out of our homemade water-pipe, barack obong-a, and then listened to the speech on repeat. We were real cool), but was an Edwards girl in this race at first as a healthcare/poverty issues, coif-loving thing. I was initially disappointed by how cagey and stolid Obama seemed. Then I was enamored with Clinton when the media started beating up on her, and then... her camp started race-baiting and I voted for Obama a bit unenthusiastically.

I don't know when I started to love him so much. But I sure do now!

I think that looking back on the primary, Obama has adopted some of both his opponents best qualities. He's become more populist and his healthcare plan is more progressive, thanks in part to Edwards. He's become tougher, calmer, lost a little of his snarky edge, thanks to Hillary. And he's built an incredible ground game and gained experience thanks to the long, hard-fought primary.

I just love him so much these days, for his grace, his somewhat dorky sense of humor, his human side which he's shown more recently, his obvious intelligence and thoughtfulness, and his strong, unabashedly smarty-pants wife. I'm proud of our party for nominating him and proud of our country (fingers crossed) for embracing him. I won't agree with much of what he does, but I will agree with the choice. He is a huge step forward for our country.

This has been more than an election: it's a movement. I've never seen my politically wonky family and friends more involved: my mom and brother have gone to Ohio. My brother took his fifteen year old mentee to knock on doors in NH. I've been to NH and Pennsylvania with my partner and our close friends. My dad organized a massive fundraiser for the organized labor/legal community in NYC. My boyfriend's family have been manning the compu-phonebanks nonstop and connecting with voters everywhere. It's incredible! This campaign has inspired and moved so many of us... I hope it's enough. I've got my fingers crossed while I obsessively putter around the house for the few hours until we KNOW something.

YES WE CAN!!!

feel free to share your vote/campaign stories if you too want to kill time.

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