It's 12:30am on election day, and by this time tomorrow America will have its first African-American President-elect. I think it's safe to say that most people alive today didn't think they'd be alive to see it.
I've said before that I took my time in warming to Obama. I was incredibly impressed by his 2004 speech to the DNC, but never really warmed to his policy proposals until much later. I, lamentably, thought Edwards was the superior pick early in the primaries. Again, it is to the credit and great benefit of the Union that I don't decide these things.
Since Edwards dropped out of the race, I decided to support Barack Obama for President largely out of spite -- I'd never been Bill Clinton's biggest fan, and was happy to see a strong challenger even though I assumed Hillary would win in the end. My enthusiasm grew as I saw Obama build something dramatically larger and more powerful than the usual Quixotic campaigns to unseat a party favorite.
The campaign proceeded to get ugly -- indeed, it's struck me in the last month that the primary seemed much uglier than the general -- and through it all the Obama campaign remained unstoppable, calmly collecting more dollars, more votes, and more delegates, until they won the contest.
And today they're poised to do it again.
Apparently, the town of Dixville Notch, NH, has already voted and they've voted for a Democrat for the first time since 1968 (and only the second time ever) which I'm taking as a good sign. Most of my coworkers are nervous after the trauma of the Bush years, but I'm going to go to bed and wake up early, and probably spend most of the day glued to CNN and RSS in equal measure. I will do this because I have a profound mental illness that gives me no joy whatsoever. Worst. Fetish. Ever.
Happy thoughts, everyone. Today is the beginning of the end of politics that have defined the world for the entirety of my (somewhat brief) adult life. Your disappointments with that sellout Obama can start on Nov. 5th. Today -- the next 23 hours and 10 minutes -- are for celebrating.
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