Post Election Blog and the Exorcism of John McCain

Today I am a special kind of happy. Tuesday our nation made history. Yesterday I went to work with my head held high, walked past the sulking, angry right and celebrated quietly in my heart. Today I have the opportunity to let this news settle and let the pride well up in my eyes.

Nearly eight years ago, I was unaffiliated. If anything, I was holding onto republican values that my mother stamped into my brain from 18 years of repetition. As I rooted for George W. (shiver), I remember a close friend asking me, how, in my social position, can I assimilate myself to a party that does so little for the people I know? That question has fizzled in my brain since then. I slept on the dirty floor in front of the TV in my rackety trailer that night, and watched the first election of two get stolen.

Fast forward a year to 9/11. I was dating an army boy, and he was sent to Afghanistan to fight the terrorists that did this to us. Never before did I feel such closeness to my fellow Americans. Democrat/Republican, we were broken, and we were pissed. This is where we had a chance to grab these people by their throats and show the world what really happens when you screw with the U.S. Shortly thereafter, Afghanistan was a figment of our imagination, and in our pain and anger, the administration told us to turn our attention to the real bad guys, in Iraq. Most did. The boy I was dating, and thousands of other troops were left in Afghanistan to fight a war without media coverage, without support, and without funding. I questioned it and was called un-American and a communist. (*chuckle*). Shortly after that, the administration's welfare reform took away opportunities for single mothers like myself to get an education and get on our feet.

It was official. I was awake. I was paying attention. I was involved.

In 2004, I absolutely expected a win for Kerry. While I was a Dean supporter, I could not imagine people still having faith in the administration's policies that had been so bad for the past few years. But apparently the same people that called me a communist for questioning bad policy in times of hardship, those people needed 4 more years of being slapped in the face to wake up. While I feel 2004 was also stolen, it was close enough to steal. That was the real problem.

I don't need to go into what has happened since then. It's waken us all up. The sleeping, the unaffiliated, and even a lot of republicans. The country has spoken. We are fed up and want change. We got it.

While I don't think Barack is the "second coming of Christ", as some put it, and while I don't agree with every single stance he's taken (my man was always Kucinich, it's too bad he's such a dork), I have stood behind him wholeheartedly, because that's what we needed to do to get change in the Whitehouse. It's a feeling that can be assimilated to when you turned 18 and left home. You gave it a go on your own, and you realized how cold and unforgiving life really was. Then one day you came down with the flu and went home so your mom could wrap you up and make you some chicken noodle soup. Barack is not my mother in this analogy, he's the soup.

I have wanted change for 8 years. I have lived in Findlay for 3 of those years. Being as boisterous and opinionated as I've been, it's been a type of torture. The majority here is a tiny slice of a small piece of pie. The pie is the nation, the slice represents the people in small towns and elsewhere that live in a bubble and don't see the rest of the world for what it is. The racial divide is a canyon. They talk to their like minded neighbor, they read their like minded newspaper, and ignore the reality of the rest of the world. While they are the majority here, and they find confidence in the masses that surround them, they are obviously NOT the majority. That reality punched them in the face late Tuesday night. The "slice" spoke on MSNBC this morning. A reporter said that as republicans, they are going to have to deal with being called un-American and un-patriotic while the far left run the nation. Well, welcome to karma-ville.

We have an opportunity that no other president has ever been able to give us. He is crossing over race and gender and status, and speaking to us as a broken nation.
My children will never look at a person of race and see that as a hardship that needs to be overcome before evening the plane. They will grow up with a black man as their president. We can get to what is really important. I grew up and have always lived in a small town where racism isn't screaming but it's a mutter under the breath. I wasn't allowed to date out of my race. It was imprinted on my mind as a child that there IS a difference. Although I wasn't allowed to hate, I was allowed to see a difference. And that might be worse. I never want that for my children.

I am so intensely proud to be an American today. While Findlay is a grumbling, angry place, where people are guaranteeing a terrorist attack, where they are promising me I will lose my job as a nurse under this administration, my smile can't be stopped. At least for today. I watched over the past months as people I knew, young people, worked our asses off to make Barack Obama Generation X's president. We united in a way that puts green in the eyes of other politicians. If only they could have the support that he has.

I watched McCain's concession speech and realized that he was only a puppet on the stage, and the unseen forces pulling his strings were the real bad guys. I used to say before McCain's campaign started that I wouldn't be too upset with McCain as the president because he was very bipartisan. But that was before he was possessed by the devil that has run our country into the ground for the past 8 years. His speech was the real McCain. I saw him after the demons had left him and felt a bit of sadness for the real man who lost the election. I'm watching now as they release into a cloud of fury, blaming Sarah Palin for their loss. And while I was never a Palin fan, I feel terrible for her.

Nevertheless, today is a bright day. Tomorrow is beaming with opportunity. I will never take a back seat and watch passively as someone makes bad decisions for us again. I see how united we are, and what a chance we have to make this country ours again. What a great day for us.