ELECTION 2008: I can't wait

I have to share this with you this morning...

I am so excited about Tuesday I almost can't breathe. There is some sort of energy in me these last couple of days and it was hard to pinpoint until I found myself showing political websites to every one of my coworkers, whose disinterested stares and polite non-committal questions should have shut me up.

I can't believe it's almost here. This is by far the most exciting election I have been in with date... and I mark my first "interested" election in 1992, when I cheeringly ran up to my parents and proclaimed that I had VOTED for Bill Clinton (in our school's election) and now he's WINNING (ironically, the only time I've ever voted for a winning presidential candidate... I was a 2000 Nader voter).

I know it seems sometimes like it's been too much, that we've been dealing with this date in full drive since October 2007 when the Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani steamrollers were threatening to dominate the airwaves for the next year.

That never happened, and it's probably for the best.

John McCain is done. Period. Don't even try to argue it. With the combination of national polls showing Obama 6-13 points ahead in the popular vote and ahead by 3-10 points in ever swing state except Missouri and Georgia (and the fact that that's a swing state should tell you something, and the fact that early voting is done and... well, you can't change that vote)... there's little chance left.

I am so excited to vote on Tuesday I can barely speak, and I know I annoy people when I talk about it... I know I've annoyed so many of my readers by focusing on it so severely on this blog for the past ... in reality, it was this election that made this blog what it is...

...but, for all my jaded disinterest in the world, I have hope.

I have a tremendous amount of hope.

Such a simple little bauble... untouchable and unmeasurable, like faith or love. But I think we are all tired of numbers and dates and bills and laws... and we are all tired of having people point at us and tell us about plans and policy. I think, sometimes, we just need someone to say, "let's do this together, let's do this as best we know how, and let's be better." You can't point on a graph and say what the measure of that is...

...but when I hear McCain, I hear desperation, I hear the dream deferred I had predicted when Clinton lost. McCain's dream exploded. His was no raisin in the sun.

...and when I hear Obama, I hear better things ahead.

Thank you, Barack Obama. Thank you.