An Historic Event

In less than one hour, the historic 2008 US presidential race could easily be called. According to nearly all major and minor polls and projections, Senator Barack Obama commands a 7-11% lead over once honorable Senator John McCain. I've been writing quite a bit about the election but haven't posted them here yet. I think that at this point, at 6:46PM eastern time, before the polls anywhere close, I think that Senator McCain HAS to win Virginia, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida, and North Carolina (where I think that Senator Elizabeth Dole will NOT keep her seat--a major shocker, really) in order to stay alive. If he loses ANY of those states, he can go to bed. Unless, of course, we have the Bradley effect.

But for now, I just want to say a couple of things. First, Max and I went to an Obama rally this past Sunday at the Ohio Statehouse lawn. It was a record breaking event, with over 60,000 people in attendance. I think its one of those times that Max will carry with him for a lifetime.

Second, I am incredibly proud of Senator Obama, Chairman Howard Dean, and the entire Democratic party for the substantive, issue-oriented, and CLEAN campaign they ran. Hopefully they've pushed back dirty politics, but I have my doubts.

Finally, I was prompted to donate even more money last Friday to the Obama campaign. Max and I were coming home on Thursday night and here in the country there are only McCain signs. Max made a comment that he was tired of seeing all these signs. So I had to go down to Democratic Party headquarters anyway so I picked up 20 signs. When he came home, we put up ten of the signs along with one other. The following is what I wrote as a comment when I donated another sum of money. A lesson learned the hard, ugly way.

"I am a single-father trying to raise my 9 year-old adopted biracial son as best I can, teaching him about equality and character and treating others as well as you would want treated. Yesterday I drove 25 miles to Columbus to pick up some yard signs supporting the Democratic ticket to place at the front of our home and along our long driveway. He had commented how on our entire 4 mile road he only saw McCain signs and was "tired of it." We put them out and he was so proud. It truly looked dynamic and very patriotic. He proceeded to drive to my sister's house and go "trick-or-treating" with her and her family. A couple of hours later we returned home and all of our Obama/Biden signs had been taken. However, there was one sign in support of Ohio attorney general Richard Cordray that was left in tact, an appropriate white sign left alone in our yard (we had placed 10 Obama/Biden signs and one Cordray sign). More wise than I thought and far wiser than his age, my son said so heart-breakingly serious and somber, "They took Obama's signs because he's part black like me, didn't they?" If it was a habit for me to lie to my son, this would have been an appropriate time. Instead, I had to shake my head in agreement as I truthfully saw no other explanation. I did my best to squelch the anger that rose in my throat like bad food. I know my face was red. My heart-raced and sank to my stomach at the same time. They even came back and took the last two signs in the middle of the night. I didn't want to have to explain racism and bigotry and ignorance to a 9 year-old. Unfortunately, I don't have to. These narrow-minded products of a Republican party bent on divisiveness did that for me. Together my son and I went back to Ohio Democratic headquarters, picked up 100 signs, and will continue to put them out no matter how many times they remove them. We decided to donate as much as we could today to Obama/Biden '08 as a result of this incident, rightfully paying for this unwanted "life lesson" taught to us by McCain's Republican pals."

I also wanted to say what states I think Obama should win:

Washington
Oregon
California
New Mexico
Nevada
Iowa
Minnesota
Wisconsin
Illinois
Michigan
Virginia
Pennsylvania
New York
All of New England
North Carolina
Florida (iffy)
Ohio (iffy-a lot of bigots still here)
And I am going to go out on a limb and say maybe even Georgia!
And I don't know, but I have a feeling he might win the District of Columbia! (wink-wink)

Gotta post this since the first set of polls just closed and CBS is already calling Kentucky (surprise) for McCain and Vermont for Obama.