I would love to say I am brimming over with good feelings and enthusiasm tonight, but I am simply too nervous. By being in Cali, my vote for President doesn't count for too much (though I like being in overall count in cases like 2000), and I voted by mail weeks ago. I have the Prop 8 Gay Marriage thing to watch here in Cali (too close to call from what I have read), but aside from that, the only advantage to being in Cali in a Presidential election is that the votes out east end early in the day, so the suspense isn't likely to be as great. At least I hope not.
I will be very happy if Barry Obama wins. I will feel like I can exhale for the first time in about 8 years. Moreover, the election of Barack Obama to the highest office in the land would represent a watershed event in US history. It would fulfill the dreams of many who expected them to never be fulfilled, and give hope to many who need it. That makes this a good time to be alive and in this country. My interest in it is more personal than anything...I simply want to see the slide into right-wing degeneracy come to a halt. After 2004, I no longer trust the electorate's ability to know right from wrong until it simply can't be missed. Even then, we sit here the night before the 2008 election, with a nation completely trashed by modern conservatism and the Republican party, and STILL feels like a nail-biter. The fact that it is even a question as to what is going to happen tomorrow is utterly deflating. That is why I can't see myself ever buying in again.
That said, if Lincoln represented a 2nd American Revolution (which I believe he did), then Martin Luther King Jr's ideas represented a possible 3rd. When LBJ signed the Voter's Rights Act in the mid-60s, he said that the Democrat party may lose the South for a generation, but it would be worth it. He is right that it was worth it, but he gave the South WAY too much credit in how long it would take to simply get over it. They aren't even close to being over it now.
It is true that race hasn't been a major issue among mainstream voters, and McCain has conducted himself honorably on this issue. I think race is an issue behind the voting booth curtain for many, and by no means only in the South - the burbs and ex-urbs have it just as bad, and I think that is why this race appears within McCain's reach the night beforehand. Perhaps Barry's chances look better, but it is nowhere near a lock. It should have been. It should have been so MONTHS ago - probably the same day that the kook from Alaska went onto the GOP ticket.
By my guess, about 25% of the USA is comprised of right-wing kooks who have such a narrow view of the world, and so little contact with it, that they are hopeless. These are the people still saying Bush is doing a good job. Bush is a botched human being responsible for one calamity after another. It is only out of hate for boogie-man leftists that keeps these people within W's orbit. F them. If Barry wins and they find themselves on the ledge tomorrow, I find little reason to talk them down. For Sen. Obama to win tomorrow is going to bring out vitriol, evil, and hyperbole among the kook right of the kind most people would not have imagined was still possible. I don't believe McCain himself went out of his way to generate, or benefit, from the nut brigade. He is the GOP candidate, so it is unavoidable that this is who would be at his rallies. Palin attracts it and will enjoy it more when it is her turn, but Palin was a choice McCain made in spite of her eccentricities. He needed to throw a sop to the nuts, and knowing that, she was a relatively inspired choice. I expect McCain to not be a sore loser, if he loses; moreover, I expect the same of Sen. Obama. McCain did to the GOP what Kerry did to the left in 2004, which is to say, kept better qualified people off the ticket because he thought it was HIS TURN. That kinda politics makes me sick. It hurt the left in 2004, and it helps them in 2008.
That doesn't make it a wash. I am not sure I would trade Obama now for Kerry in 2004. Kerry was not a good candidate, and I voted for him in a "anything but Dear Leader" mode. Even so, we would have been better off without W as of that election. The one MAJOR benefit for things turning out as they have is that by losing in 2004, and by Barack Obama being the Dem candidate in 08, I was spared the horror of having to consider voting for Hillary. I did not vote for Bill - nor should I have - and every fiber of my being would have reacted against voting for her for President (I did vote for her for her NY Senate seat - which was a lesser of 2 evils thing too IMHO, and far less consequential.) Hillary and Bill Clinton are crass, cynical, soul-less uber-politicians. I am no McCain fan, but he has conducted himself more honorably in his career than Hillary has (on balance.) Yes, the Clintons tended to be politically more close to my opinions than the GOP has been, but they practice such a ruthless, cynical brand of politics that they damage the institutions significantly even as they do things that produce outcomes I prefer. I would likely have voted for Hillary if she was the nominee just because the GOP needs as many votes against them as can be mustered. It would have been better to support a Blue Dog middle to keep her in check than to have not vote for her. Again, I am just glad Barack made it so it never got to that point. The office isn't hers because she waited her turn and thought that was all she needed to do. She felt that by being the machine candidate it was a lock, and Barry proved it not to be so. That pleases me greatly.
I hope this is THAT election in which the young really do come out and turn things in favor of Sen Obama. That is the usual narrative, and while it sounds great, it rarely produces results. Once the good youngin's of Eastern Iowa shocked the establishment by pushing hard for Senator Obama in the primaries and getting him over, I thought this might finally be the one. I am hoping on hope that it turns out to be true. It would go a long way towards making me feel better about the state of affairs. Not since 1968 have the young had so much at stake, and never has it been so important they get out and help sort it out. I pray for them that it happens. They need it. The people running government now have done a piss-poor job, and will surely send the shit downstream for the young to deal with later. It is unfair, but this feels like that one time the kiddies may see that clear as day. Again, I pray they see it and get out and stop it while there is still a pot to piss in.
I am getting way too into it here, and I don't even know what has happened yet. I want to go to bed thinking the polls are right, and that the GOP attempting to steal it somehow would be stopped. It would be a shock if all the polls were THIS wrong, but until it is conceded by McCain, I won't believe. Frankly, until the Electoral College votes Barry and it is certified, I won't believe. This election has gone on and on and on and on, and frankly, I am sick of it. After 2004, my ability to sit through this stuff without going bonkers has diminished considerably. You have NO IDEA what a good boy I have been. For me to have all but stopped writing about or documenting the horror of politics under Dear Leader was quite difficult. I had to do it to keep my blood pressure down, and to be able to retain any good feeling or hope for the future.
Don't get me wrong, I still think the Blue States of 2004 would be best served by pushing secession, and perhaps I will be able to find some converts to the cause from across the aisle come tomorrow. I certainly hope so, but I am not counting on it. They won't like the terms - and I wouldn't break bread with many converts for any reason outside of a church (and lest you think that is entirely partisan, I find the knuckle-dragging Bush voter more tolerable than the Nader voter from 2000 - the Bush voter usually can honestly claim they don't know any better.) At the end of the day, I think the only thing that would find me willing to abandon the idea of secession would be the end of the electoral college. I think also the idea of a weakened executive makes sense, perhaps in favor of something more like the Parliamentary System nearly every other democracy uses. None of this is ever gonna happen, so again, I will hereby try to recommit myself to dropping the subject. I realize this is a real eye-roller for the average person.
So anyway, if you have friends or relatives in a state that is tight, PLEASE call them and encourage them to vote if you think they might go for Senator Obama. I called my peeps in North Carolina who might go Barry. I haven't called friends in Ohio who will go McCain. I will be going through the address book again tomorrow to see if there is anyone I forgot.
The polls are already open in Dixville Notch, NH, so the games have begun. Time to go to sleep and pray for the best. I think there is every reason to believe things will go well (I think Barry wins, and the Dems pick up 7 Senate seats BTW.) After that, the praying REALLY needs to start (that is true for either candidate actually.) The problems we face are severe, and if Barack Obama is president-elect this time tomorrow, no one since Lincoln will start with such large problems needing to be solved in such a toxic political environment. He is a bit of an unknown, and I suspect he will be a disaster or one of the greats. With Illinois' track record of sending little known lawyers to DC during times of deep division and strife, I lean towards optimism.
Posted by rudayday at November 03, 2008 09:30 PM