It seems like a million years ago that David and I sat on the couch and watched returns for Iowa come in and I watched Obama speak for the first time. I was sold. Completely sold. David had been talking him up for months, but I chalked that up to the fact that Obama had been his Constitutional Law professor back in law school. (I know! How cool is that?) and I still wanted to support Hillary because I still loved the Clintons. But Obama spoke that night and I cried. For this first time in a very long time I actually felt hope for our country. I actually felt a small flicker of pride in our country, something that had burned out in me in 2000. I felt like this candidate could actually do something for us all. And perhaps it was naive to think that then, and perhaps even more naive now, in the face of this crushing economic failure, but I have watched Obama give countless speeches since January and I have cried every time. Sure the pregnancy hormones probably had something to do with it, but each time I heard him speak I was amazed again. His speech on race, after the Reverend Wright debacle, took on race in a way I had never heard a politician do. His acceptance speech at the convention was the last word in acceptance speeches - gracious, humble and a powerful attack on his opponents. I stressed over every debate, sweating every "um" he uttered but I shouldn't have worried. He easily carried the day.
So here we are. Here I am. Sitting on the couch with this precious two week old baby sleeping next to me and tomorrow David and I will go vote for Obama because it's the best thing we can do for Luke, aside from the tangible stuff like yet another diaper change or another round of feeding. It's our best chance to elect someone who cares about the future of this country and cares enough to fight for our country and our world and by voting for Obama we might be able to change the course of history of the last eight years so that Luke will have a country to be proud of. I want him to be able to grow up with the kind of patriotic pride I had when I was little. The kind of pride that led my sisters and me to hang flags out of every window of our house on the Fourth of July. The kind of pride where the putting your hand over your heart for the national anthem meant something to you, not just an empty gesture like a flag pin because everyone else is wearing one.
I feel like a kid on Christmas Eve, wishing and hoping and praying for that puppy under the tree: half scared that it won't be there and half-excited because it just has to be there.
Please. Please. Please. Let him win.
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