Wow. I am watching Morning Joe. I don’t normally watch the show, but have learned to hate Joe Scarborough less than I did years ago. I have even begun to appreciate his independent lens a bit lately. This morning he does seem to be a bit cranky. Joe does not seem to be very happy about the Obama campaign and in fact seems to be feeling quite the victim today. Joe and the other red stater’s on the show are actually crying about how much more money Obama has, and they are moaning about how the media is giving Obama an unfair advantage.
Huh. This must be what it feels like to be a republican. I feel really good about the election. We are not only beating the McCain campaign by raising funds, we are ahead in every possible (and a few improbable) states, and we have a ground game unlike anything ever seen before.
And yet I am at odds with myself. I am very stressed out about the election. I try to think of all the ways we could lose (and there are many). This is the original Democrat in me. Sometimes I think that a person has to be able to take a lot of pain in order to be an actual Democrat. I laughed earlier at Joe, because I have been there. I have cried about what a shitty candidate we had, and how we could not even begin to raise the kind of dollars the republicans could easily capture. Democrats usually had a better ground game, but we have been denied even that over the past two presidential elections.
So why am I a Democrat? Because there is really no alternative, nor has there been one in my lifetime. I am not sure what would have happened if Howard Dean had not changed everything. He was the first one to ride the wave of the people. He and everyone who has demanded our country back over the past six years has helped me hope that we can reclaim the idea and reality of the United States of America.
I do not think that I have had any kool-aid. In fact I switched my support from Obama to Clinton over a year ago and I fought like mad for my candidate. When Hillary lost the primary, I began to appreciate the leadership skills, campaign ability, policies, and message from Barack Obama and his campaign. I realized Obama ran a better campaign than did Clinton, and he beat her fair and square (as fair as it gets in politics). That being said, Obama is beating McCain fair and square, and he is doing it in the face of some of the worst sort of campaigning I have ever seen in my lifetime.
So I don’t know quite what to do. I have had a rather difficult time over the past three months and have lost confidence in myself and with that my voice. I am really tired of that and am now just saying “f*@k it”. I am going to write no matter how bad it is.
For the past week or so I have felt this tension building. We are moving and that really sucks, but the approaching election is freaking me out the most. It has been harder than ever to read diaries and get any words out in response. It has been tough to make calls and really difficult to get out and talk to people. Whenever I talk to friends about how well we are doing, we stop and check ourselves, often knocking on wood and saying things like, “he hasn’t won yet” and “we still need to get him elected”. Some think they will jinx the election if we are over confident and others are preparing themselves for the worst. Bloody fracking Democrats. I am tired of this as well.
So heck with it. Barack Obama is going to win this election next week! There, I said it. Have I made the election gods mad? Did I sound arrogant and too confident? Well shame on me, just call me a republican.
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