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I'll say it: Barack Obama is going to win New Hampshire tomorrow by a significant margin, and he will do so in the context of one of the highest voter turnouts our state has seen in years.
I believe that the Senator from Illinois is also going to be the next president of the United States. Moreover, the phenomenon surrounding him will continue into November, resulting in tremendous gains in the House, Senate, and gubernatorial contests.
It is a very, very, good time to be a Democrat. And after the nightmare that Bush and Cheney have unleashed on the country and world since 2000, I'd say we deserve every inch of that victory.
Give me any GOoPer against an Obama ticket - even McCain or Huckabee. There isn't a fight I would welcome more.
I have long suspected that his candidacy represented a chance for young people, independents, and Republicans to join the Democratic party, but I had no idea to what a great extent that is unfolding right before my eyes. It really is a marvel, and I'm still trying to figure out the precise nature of the appeal. I am not old enough to have known JFK's candidacy, but those who are tell me there's a similarity.
Six months ago or so, Laura or Mike could attest to the fact that I was very down on Obama, sometimes quite hostile (yes, believe it or not, we three don't always post our unvarnished feelings here, out of respect for the community nature of the place we facilitate). I didn't understand why he kept speaking in right-wing frames, and I thought he was advocating a mushy political centrism, the existence of which I profoundly deny. There is no political center - it is a mirage created by pundits and Bloombergs. There is only the tug of war between the two sides, and where the flag tied in the middle part of the rope ends up, is where we all end up. And since Ronald Reagan, that flag has been jerked repeatedly to the right with almost radical violence.
But, despite how the new WaPo article frames it with my words, I no longer believe that Obama is pushing centrist bi-partisanship.
Over time, I've come to believe that what he is really aiming at is inclusion, and by Jove, he's damn good at it. He's getting hordes of independents and first time voters and even Republicans over to his side. And once he's got them all there, he's getting them all to agree that, e.g., we all need to fix our health care system, or that we need a bold alternative energy policy.
Will it work, and will his support result in the kind of strong mandate we need to undo the wreckage of Bush/Cheny? I don't know. It's a giant "if".
A word about Hillary Clinton. I'm going to shock some of you here when I say that Hillary Clinton would be a phenomenal president, on both foreign and domestic issues. When her Mark Penn driven campaign now and then allows me to see the actual Hillary, I am always impressed. And now that she's on the ropes, her determination and persistence are much more appealing, ironically. The "incumbency cum inevitability" strategy was a complete and total failure, imho.
(And when Mark Penn gets canned tomorrow night, let it be known that I called him out many months ago. What a difference it would have been for Hillary had she had people like Jim Splaine and Kathy Sullivan running the show. Right now I'm not sure either Penn or Bill Clinton are on the right track.)
Here's the thing. I really dislike single-issue voters and voting. But I just cannot get past the defense of her Iraq authorization vote.
Plenty of people good and bad, decent and not, stupidly supported the Iraq war - I was one of them. But every one of the Democratic candidates either were against it, or have since expressed regret for their vote, except for her. My regret over it is represented by everything I do here. Why she would want to continue to support that vote is beyond me. It hurts her, and it hurts the Democratic brand, and it hurts the ability of our country to heal from the "big lie" of Iraq that has made us a dysfunctional nation. I can only imagine that it was a strategic decision made on her campaign's part to make her look "tough" to Middle America, or something like that. I can't really figure it out, because I can't really understand what goes on in the minds of the Mark Penn world of floating consultants.
That leaves John Edwards.
Tomorrow I will be proudly casting my vote for him, even with the knowledge that we are heading toward an Obama presidency.
Why? It's an argument from subtraction, really. Can you imagine what the race would have been like for oh these many months with only Hillary and Obama? Who would be calling out the powers that be that do so much to keep the status quo? Who would be speaking for the least among us? He has created a set of issues that the chattering class would rather not have to think about - the ugly fact of how so much pain and suffering and despair exist in this country due to the absurd concentration of wealth that Bush has escalated.
Senator Obama doesn't need my vote - he'll do just fine without me. But what he could use is for Edwards, the man and the message, to stick around for as long as possible in this race, so that he can be daily reminded of how deeply people support those who strongly oppose what has become of this great land - in its air and water, and in its treasure, and in its honor, and in its heart. It will make him an even better president - of that I'm sure.
Finally, I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that, despite all the yakking we do here on microscopic points of policy, a voter's decision often comes down to character and trust.
Do I trust Edwards? Do I think him genuine? It's been a struggle I've had for a while.
But in the end, my wife deftly reminded of the greatest moment in the Edwards campaign, and the one I was most proud of:
I really don't know if I could have done the same. And trust me, without getting too personal, I know what that situation is like. What a moment of incredible generosity to the American people, and to the idea of public service.
John and Elizabeth Edwards have sacrificed so much to carry the torch on the desperately important issues facing us. They deserve a seat at the table of the national discussion for as long as possible.
