America is Ready.

Wednesday, November 5th, 2008

It is just starting to fully sink in now.
Over the course of this election I watched, read and absorbed everything I could. Watched polls come in. Read the bloggers and journalists from both sides. Listened to people when they talked. Heard the hate and the praise. The hope and the fear. I was afraid. I was excited.
From my seat at my desk my eyes were assaulted with everything from hope so pure it made my heart ache to hatred so vile it made be clench my teeth until it hurt.
At first it seemed unlikely but over time things started looking better, more hopeful, but even then I didn’t feel content. As the polls came in for the primary run I got excited but still I felt that this wasn’t a sure thing.
Then the primary was won. I couldn’t believe it.
And I still couldn’t relax.
People screamed that he couldn’t win Hillary supporters. He couldn’t win whites. He couldn’t win Hispanics. I bit my nails.
More polls and more panic. It looked too good. Pundits talked about the Bradley effect. I didn’t buy it.
It looked close. Could we squeak by? Obama picked Biden. I loved the pick. It was perfect. But there was no southerner on the ticket. Shit. Can he grab any southern voters at all?
McCain picked Palin. Everyone with a working brain saw that pick for what it was. McCain got a small bump from the pick at first then she started to talk. Every time she opened he mouth pure bullshit fell out. I couldn’t help but laugh at her. She personally lost McCain any chance at stealing a majority of independent votes and any of the so-called Reagan Democrats. She spit hate and anger, played to the fear. She hyped up the idiots with her moronic words. But she failed. She successfully solidified the extremist fools into the main McCain support base instead of leaving them out on the fringe.
It looked bad for McCain.

Election day was stressful for me. My polling place is very close to my house and I could have voted at anytime but I waited. My wife was at work and I wanted to go as a family. So I waited. I bit my nails. I watched the news. I saw the lines. I read the stories of people crying tears of joy on the way out of their polling place. I read stories of voter caging. I was still worried.
Finally we went and voted. No wait at all. Went in, pulled levers, went out. We stopped by the Obama office after voting and it was packed. It was loud. It was full of energy. I was still worried.
Back to my couch to have a few beers and try to relax as I prepared for what I thought would be a long long night.

The numbers started creeping in as I sat there drinking my beer and chewing my lip. I stepped outside to make a few phone calls and noticed something strange. Silence. I live in a college neighborhood within throwing distance from a main road. No voices. No traffic sounds. Nothing. I have never heard it this quiet here.
OH, PA, VA, IA went blue. I screamed. More results came in. Some red, some blue. Around 10:30PM eastern my brain clicked in. Math. If CA, WA, HI went blue it was over, that was 270. We had it. My wife warned me that it was still to early to celebrate. My phone lit up with texts. Kelly was analyzing, Phil was worried.

11:00PM
The left cost goes blue! Holy shit! It is over! I’m still a bit worried though. Is this really it? It is only 11PM. No shenanigans?
A very classy concession from McCain. No speech from Palin thankfully. That is when it his me. Relief. It is over.
Another trip outside. It is now a different place. I can hear the shouts from the Obama office all the way over here. I’m smiling. I’m laughing. I’m happy. I am actually happy.
I watch people show up for the victory speech in Chicago. A massive sea of people. I don’t ever think I have ever seen that many people in one place. All the faces happy. Many of them crying. All of them united no matter their race or creed. It was amazing. The camera panned over and I saw Jesse Jackson. He was crying. It nearly killed me.

After it was over, after everyone was gone or asleep, I cried.


Decision ‘08: America Wipes Her Ass.

Tuesday, November 4th, 2008

We are finally here. It was a long and amusing process. There have been a lot of exciting moments and probably an equal amount of screaming-at-the-TV moments. All of those moments are inconsequential compared to the small moment you will have when you step inside that voting booth.
Now go. Vote. This post will still be here when you come back from doing your duty as a citizen of this great nation.

Back? Voted? Got your sticker and your free coffee from Starbucks?
Good.

Before I start spitting my anger and sarcasm I would like to take a moment out to thank Madelyn Payne Dunham, the grandmother of Barack Obama. Thank you for helping to shape Senator Obama into the man that will hopefully be our next president. She got the chance to vote for her grandson in the presidential election but she sadly will not have the chance to see him lead. My heart and wll wishes go out to her entire family. Madelyn Payne Dunham was 86.

I’m going to be kind of sad once this is all over. I’ve never yelled at my television this much when I wasn’t watching hockey. This has been an exciting time for me. Nerve wracking, but exciting. I really enjoyed watching the McCain campaign venture into the inane with their bullshit attacks and fear mongering. For all the shit they threw at Obama, after all the times they tried to link him to terrorists, extremists, socialism, after all that the make an ad that ended with saying Obama wasn’t ready to be president… yet.
Yet.
The yet implies he will be ready eventually. But at the same time they want you to believe he is evil. How the hell are we supposed to take these fucksticks seriously if they refute themselves?
All the slander, all the lies, the fear mongering, the bullshit, the general douchebaggery coming out of the Republican mouthpieces to me feels frantic. And judging by the current numbers over at Pollster the American populace is ignoring it. Pollster has Obama at 291 electoral votes (273 strong, 18 lean), McCain at 142 (129 strong, 13 lean). 105 in the tossup. With that math McCain could take all of his strong states, all of his lean states, all of the toss up and, get this, all of the Obama lean states and would still lose. It would be close but he would still lose.
All that and I am still nervous. I think after the last two elections no democratic voter should feel comfortable.

One thing that does make me smile is the final Senate Score Card from fivethirtyeight.com:

That looks like good news doesn’t it?

I hope when this is over we can finally tell the Republican party what they deserve to hear:

Get the fuck out.