But, now, we are down to crunch time. No matter who you support, you feel the anxiety in the air, the realization from every side that right now is almost too late, and those involved in campaigns are almost holding their breath to see what happens.
Joe Vogel (who, if you remember, was involved with inviting Michael Moore to BYU, and wrote The Obama Movement: Why Barack Obama Speaks to America's Youth, among other books) wrote this early this morning on his Barack Obama blog:
Remember how we felt the night Barack Obama won the Iowa caucuses. For a brief moment, the division, the bitterness, the cynicism, the anger subsided. Even the most skeptical pundits recognized the beauty of the moment as Barack Obama and his young family made their way onto the stage where he delivered one of the most memorable speeches in a generation.He gives an interesting insight, and perhaps a reminder for those like myself, to breathe and remember why we're doing this. The last two sentences truly sum up everything I needed to be reminded of this morning.
That night as I read through blogs and comments on news sites I witnessed something I have never seen before or since. Almost unanimously, people recognized something profound just happened. They were inspired. They felt hope. They were proud to be Americans.
Maybe I should have joined a yoga class this week instead of the gym.
I feel pride and excitement about all three Democratic candidates. The one thing that would dampen my enthusiasm would be for the sniping between campaigns and backers to continue. I hope they are able to smooth things over. Then the world will be a wonderful place, indeed. :-)
ReplyDeleteVoU, I was talking about the politics of Hope, not of Dreamland. ;-)
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't expect the sniping between backers to ease much. Backers are mostly individual people who don't have advisers telling them how to react, nor do they see the campaign as hinging on their behavior. Plus, most of the backers are determined that their candidate is "the only one" that can or should be president.
I'm only partially guilty. I think my candidate is "the best one", although I've appreciated most of the other candidates, and have been proud that they're fellow Democrats. But, there is a certain candidate that scares the crap out of me, and that was true prior to the presidential race starting. It's not that she's a threat to my favorite, it's that she's a threat to my politics.
It would be like holding my tongue when someone brings up Bush Jr, it's next to impossible. But, when I make my arguments, I think they're mostly sound arguments about politics, rather than phony smears, which are what I think sniping is.
On the official campaign level, I think that attacks between each other are fine, as long as they don't turn into dirty politics. Some of it has stooped that low, but I'm hoping we've seen the last of it for a while.