Don't It Make My Red State Blue....

I was three years old the first time I cried over a presidential election.

My parents and I were on a flight back to DC when the pilot announced over the loudspeaker that Bush 1 (the one who projectile-vomited on the lap of the Japanese Prime Minister, not the one who got a black eye whilst eating a pretzel) had won the election over Michael Dukakis (also, did you know that today's his birthday?!). It's important for you to know exactly how my parents indoctrinated me into my political leanings. I don't remember exactly, but I'm told it went a little something like this:

Me: Hi Mommy, please explain politics to me
Mom: Well honey, we're Democrats and we believe that the government should help people who need it. Republicans don't want to help those people. Does that seem fair?
Me: No, that sounds very terrible. I hope that the mean, bad Republican doesn't win on election day.

So you can imagine my dismay and the way it broke my tiny, three-year old heart when Evil triumphed over Good. I was destroyed. What would this mean for me, my family, my country? What if, God forbid, Cookie Monster's penchant for the pastries finally caught up with him and he had to have cardio-vascular surgery, which he could not afford?! What if Rainbow Brite fell on hard times and couldn't pay her rent? FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, WHAT ABOUT STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE?!

Now I am older. I am wiser. I understand that politics is more complicated than that, and that being a Republican doesn't make you evil, and being a Democrat doesn't make you good (although in all fairness, it probably makes you less likely to speak ill of gay people and then get caught trying to have anonymous, weird foot-tapping gay sex in a public restroom). And as a Democrat in this country, I've experienced many, many more years of not agreeing with my president and, sometimes, thinking he is about as qualified to run my country as any of the aforementioned fictional children's characters are.

I remember watching Obama's speech at the convention prior to the Kerry/Bush election and thinking "wow-I wish this guy would run right now." He was inspiring. Kerry was the lesser of two evils.

At some point in this election process, many, many McCain supporters have turned that idea of inspiration, the concept of "hope", into a punchline. Something negative. I'm sorry, but I WANT more for my country. I want us to be successful here and abroad. I want to be able to proudly declare my citizenship while in other countries without having to worry that the person I'm speaking with already hates me because of my nationality. I want a person who I feel is overwhelmingly GOOD, just plain good, in the White House. I don't want more of the same. I don't want a president so arrogant, so unresponsive to Americans and what's best for them that he would chose someone like Sarah Palin as his running mate. I want the guy running under the concepts of "hope" and "change" rather than the one using fear tactics to scare Americans into being complacent robots like the Bush administration has continued to do following 9/11. I want something better than that for the United States. I want Barack Obama.

I'll be honest, I'm terrified about tomorrow. I've been so hopeful and optimistic about the outcome of this election, that a future without Obama winning just seems too bleak and depressing to bear. But I'll buck up and deal if I have to. At least alcohol is available to me this time around (can you believe that my flamingly liberal parents wouldn't let me have a TINY bit of vodka to mix with my chocolate milk?! Socialists).

Now let me tell you about the last time I cried over a presidential election. I went home two weeks ago and voted Absentee In-Person in the great state of Virginia, a state that could potentially vote Democrat for this first time in over 40 years. While I think that they need a better, less oxymoronical name, it was a great, great option. I wanted to cast my ballot in person. My 14 year old brother accompanied me into the voting booth, and I made him stop and just stare at the ballot after I'd marked, VERY CAREFUL, the Obama/Biden position.

"Do you see this? I want you to remember this. One day you'll tell your kids about it. I think we just voted for the first black President of the United States."

Vote tomorrow, friends. And if things don't turn out like I hope and pray they will, then there's always 2012. And Canada. Just an option, all I'm saying.