02.07.08
Caucus on Saturday in WA
Get out there if you can. Although it doesn’t matter so much if you’re backing a Republican. (Purely in terms of state rules, and the current races.) 1pm on Saturday. You can find your caucus site here or here.
A few more details on my (and I guess a long of young peoples’) gravitation towards Obama. It’s not about the issues - it’s about character and about tone. I don’t know that we’d fix the healthcare system in the next 4/8 years with either Democrat. I don’t think McCain would secure the border before integrating currently illegal immigrants. Neither affects me much personally.
My (if you’ll allow me) hope has leapt up against the background of growing up with the last two presidents. I thought we wouldn’t see another president as shameful as Clinton, after watching him lie under oath about his oval-office affair - not to mention whitewater, travelgate, memogate, etc etc. But then Bush came along and inconceivably did even more damage to America’s relationship with the rest of the world. His insular stubbornness and foolishness has been utterly flabbergasting at times.
I took a while to warm up to Obama. Watching him in while we were in Illinois, Becky hearing him at a teachers conference - I still thought he was fluff in 2004. His words have little power without the backing of millions. But the prospect of having him as President, just who he is alone, has pierced through my depressing political cynicism. I don’t know what the next 4 years would look like. The built-up cruft and negative-feedback loops in government won’t be magically changed by the words hope, unity, or dream. But all I can do as a voter is say, that’s what I want. That’s what I care about. See that guy that wants to be ‘post-partisan’? I want more like him.
