And Now For Something Completely Different

I'm taking a break from my usual humor-laced blog today. I'll try not to get too deep...

Last night's speech by Barack Obama moved me so much that my eyes keep welling up a day later as I think about it. Then this morning's announcement that McCain chose a woman as his running mate started to make me a bit nervous - will women vote for McCain now just because he's got a woman on the ticket, regardless of the fact that she is not an advocate for women's issues? Obviously that's the idea and it made me unsettled. Then I suddenly remembered something from "The Secret" that really hit me at the time but I had sort of forgotten about until now. It mentions how people who rally against causes are frequently not successful. This is because of the nature of attraction – rallying against something just brings up more of the negative feelings and they keep coming back. This may be why Kerry didn’t win in 2004 – people weren’t voting FOR him as much as they were voting AGAINST Bush.

This year is different. We aren’t just voting AGAINST McCain and the last 8 years – though that’s certainly part of it. But this time we’re voting FOR Barack and FOR the hope he brings with him.

My officemate is a die-hard Democrat who had been leaning toward Hillary but would vote for whoever the Dem candidate ended up being. She saw Hillary’s speech on Tuesday and was moved enough to volunteer for the Obama campaign. And she went to an Obama houseparty last night, with a whole bunch of people she didn’t know and was totally out of her comfort zone but felt moved to do it. And after hearing his speech (and crying off-and-on throughout) she said she is no longer just behind him because he is the Democratic nominee, she is now behind him because of WHO HE IS.

Amazing.

We’re gonna win this time.