The Beginning

I probably wouldn't be here talking about this if it weren't for Barack Obama.

I graduated as valedictorian of my high school class the night before my 18th birthday. My speech was a call to action on the part of my classmates, an encouragement to them to vote, to pay attention, to BE INVOLVED in the political process. I graduated around the end of the Cold War, so it was an exciting time.

The next morning, I got up early (NOT my normal modus operandi)and went straight to the courthouse. I couldn't wait to become a voter. What a nerd I was. I was so proud to have that little blue card.

In 1992, I voted for Jerry Brown in the primary, and, after long consideration of Ross Perot, voted for Bill Clinton in the general.

Until a few weeks ago, when I cast my primary ballot for Barack Obama, I never voted again.

It wasn't 9/11 or even the war in Iraq that really woke me up. It was Hurricane Katrina.

Katrina came barreling through my town, nearly 100 miles from the coast, casting off tornadoes and blowing at a tremendous clip. It's estimated that 25 tornadoes touched down in my county. My wife and I, newly moved into an apartment and caught completely unprepared, watched in horror as five trees landed on the building next to ours--the first and thickest tree to fall nearly chopped the two-story building in half.

Our power was out for a week, cable for two weeks, Internet for three. And we got off very light.

Once I got to the point that I could communicate with the world again, I started watching the news and reading articles about the pathetic government response to the storm.

It didn't take long for me to realize something: they had fucked it up. I mean, when Canadian mounties from Vancouver, British Columbia are the first rescue workers to arrive in Metairie, Louisiana...yeah, they fucked it up.

It didn't take long, either, for that realization to lead me to a question: if they could fuck THAT up THAT royally--something they ("they" being, of course, the Bush administration) KNEW was coming...what else were they fucking up?

At that point, I did what any right-thinking American would do: I went out and bought myself an Al Franken book. Then a couple other "liberal"-type books.

The more I read, the more appalled I became. This took a while (I had a full-time job and was taking some classes on the side), but by the end of 2006 I was determined to vote Democratic in the next Presidential election.

That's when I started hearing about this guy Obama. I recalled, from the scant attention I paid to the 2004 election, hearing that he was a "rising star" in the Democratic party, which had struck me as odd at the time considering he didn't even hold national office.

I heard he was considering running for President. And, for whatever reason, I went to his website and watched a little video of him talking about the possibility. He seemed REAL. It didn't look scripted. It didn't seem phony. I got interested.

Why not Joe Biden, or Chris Dodd, or John Edwards? Why not Hillary Clinton?

You have to understand that, by this point, I was so disillusioned and deeply distrustful of the government that, while I say I was ready to vote Democratic, really I'd have been ready to vote for a second Revolution. The whole reason I had gone from that fired-up, enthusiastic kid to the burned-out, bitter (yes, BITTER) apathetic that I was was because I had become convinced--and still am--that the corporations and moneyed interests in Washington ran everything, and that none of our politicians gave a shit about the American people, not really. Voting for an "establishment" candidate like Biden or Dodd or Clinton just wasn't going to happen. I knew fully well that both parties had been corrupted by the big PAC's and special-interest groups. John Edwards--I remembered him from the Kerry campaign, and he seemed like a Bill Clinton clone to me, another Slick Willie who'd say whatever he had to say to get elected. I just innately distrusted him.

So, I saw Obama's pre-announcement announcement. And luckily, I happened to be off work that cold morning when he announced his candidacy. I watched the whole speech.

It was like I'd met my twin. Barack said things I'd been thinking for years. I was hooked.

I went to his website, signed up, sent him a modest donation (the first time I'd ever done that in my LIFE) and bought some bumper stickers and T-shirts that took a couple months to arrive.

And then my wife went crazy. She couldn't sleep. Couldn't eat. Couldn't study (by this point, SHE was the one in school). We went to the doctor, and at the age of 36 my wife was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, type I mixed. She went from the heights of mania to the depths of depression and back again. At one point, she went to an inpatient facility for childhood trauma victims (and yes, she definitely qualified).

Let's just say that 2007 was a rough year. I changed jobs in the middle of it, and it took them several tries to find the right combo of meds for my wife. But, thank God, they finally did.

Barack didn't get much help from me in 2007, I admit--I was busy fighting my own battles. So I missed out on a lot of the fun.

But, when I could, I was watching. And then he won Iowa. Things looked great. I knew enough to know that winning Iowa had been the key to the whole plan.

Then he lost New Hampshire and (sort of) Nevada. I got nervous. But then he blew Clinton out in South Carolina. Life was starting to settle down for me, and I was able to start sending some donations again.

The rest of the story, you all know.

So here we are, with North Carolina and Indiana once again providing the tantalizing possibility of locking up the nomination.

Now, personally, I think he's already got it locked up. He's had it locked up since Wisconsin if not before. But I think his final and complete disavowal of Jeremiah Wright, and Hillary's ridiculous gas-tax holiday proposal, have made her winning via superdelegate coup absolutely impossible, if ever in fact it WAS possible anyway.

But John McCain is still out there. And he is running ridiculously close to Barack.

I don't want this going to the convention. I don't even want this going to June.

I want this done NOW. Tuesday.

I admit I've spent more money than time on the campaign, except for the canvassing I did when it was Mississippi's turn. A lot of that has had to do with my strange work schedule (I'm a registered nurse and I work nights).

But I've got five days off in a row, starting Saturday. I'm gonna be making some calls to Indiana.

John McCain CANNOT be our next President. If he is, our nation is doomed.

And every day we drag this primary out, it helps John McCain.

I'm ready to end it, and end it now. I hope the voters of North Carolina and Indiana are with me.