caucus night
Mood: cold
Posted on 2008-01-03 23:20:00
Tags: election essay house politics
Words: 216

The short version: Obama wins, Edwards just barely beats Clinton for second. Huckabee wins on the Republican side.

Back in 2003, I was a huge Dean supporter. I got to shake his hand (this was back in April when he was pretty unknown), went to Meetups for him and wrote letters to voters in Iowa, sent him lots of money, went down to San Antonio for a rally wearing my Dean shirt and hat, etc., etc. When he lost in Iowa and then the whole Dean Scream nonsense, it broke my heart. I did get behind Kerry, not terribly enthusiastically, but what's the alternative, right? His loss broke my heart too, but in a smaller way.

Anyway, I feel a little bad that I wasn't backing a particular candidate, because I don't want to lose my passion...but in the end it's really hard to tell who would make the best President. They're all pretty good, and I'd be happy if any of them got elected. (even Gravel...think of what an entertaining four years that would make!)

Tomorrow night: movie
Saturday: drive to Houston, do a bachelor party
Sunday: drive back to Austin earlyish, meet djedi's parents and look at houses. Maybe decide to make an offer on the one we like. That would be pretty neat.

4 comments

Comment from llemma:
2008-01-04T09:19:38+00:00
The first election in which I was old enough to vote was 2000. I got a little excited about Bradley, then watched him get crushed and then the Democrats get crushed in a sequence of events that struck me as so improbably stupid and wrong that I decided I just didn't have any idea what politics or this country were actually about. Since then, I've done my duty -- voted, sent money sometimes, kept track of the issues more or less -- but with a fundamental sense that "kulam ganavim" (they're all basically theives) -- that the best I could do was make sure the wrong lizard didn't win.

Which is a long way of saying, at some point last year, I started to believe that Barack Obama is something different.

His policies are solid -- most of the Democrats' are, as you point out -- but what I think really matters -- what I used to not believe in at all -- is how he would lead us. I think he is a serious thinker and a person of true integrity -- I think he would ask us to face challenges not by ascribing them to mysterious evil forces on one side or another but by accepting that they are complicated and their solutions may not be easy -- and also I think he can unite us in a real way behind the IDEA of America, of freedom and responsible strength and actual tolerance, that seems to have gotten lost somehow in the last eight years.

(Side note: He was asked once why he doesn't usually wear the obligatory-in-DC-since-9-11 American flag pin. He said he hoped to express his patriotism through action and not be judged by his jewelry. Fox blasted him for three days. ("Obama too good for American flag?") He did not apologize and still doesn't wear it.)

I don't hate Republicans. I don't hate Christians. I don't hate rural people. I don't hate nonwhite people. I don't hate rich people. And I don't think they hate me. I think we want a lot of the same things, and I think he can get us working on them again. Not agreeing on how to fix them necessarily but at least agreeing that we all care and that there are better and worse ways.

Every time I hear him speak, I think of that Langston Hughes poem -- "Let America be America again./ Let it be the dream it used to be."

Anyway -- I swear -- I'm NEVER like this. Ask anybody. I've never written a post or comment like this either, and it's a little embarrassing -- easier to be agnostic and distant -- but I'm afraid it might start happening to me here and there.

If you didn't see it, check out his speech from last night. Not that you have to agree or anything, I just need to share. (: It's http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQo8sRiahwE (part 1) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d85kIb3KCyU (part 2).

Comment from djedi:
2008-01-04T10:53:05+00:00
I gained a lot of respect for him with the whole flag-pin thing.

Comment from quijax:
2008-01-04T10:52:50+00:00
Yay house! I'm sure you guys will feel so much better when the decision is made.

Comment from djedi:
2008-01-04T10:53:43+00:00
Yeah, the Dean thing was very sad. It was like Gore and the media distortions and lies, but in fast forward and in the primary season.

This backup was done by LJBackup.