Politics, How Do I Love Thee?

Got into a political chat with a new friend of mine. That was interesting. Love talking politics. It's just so, you know, verboten and all.

She's pro-Hillary, I'm pro-Obama, but neither of us cold-cocked the other, so this is good. We both surmised that, while we'd prefer a Dem clinch it, even John McCain would be a positive force on Pennsylvania Avenue, so, you know, much lower stress, this election year.

But then she played the "Hillary has all that experience" card, and I trumped it with "Kennedy was a junior senator, too."

And I guess that's the thing we both agreed on, with Obama's relative lack of experience, he's also had less time to get ingrained in the wicked web that is Washington. This is a good thing, no matter how you slice it.

I like what McGovern's thrown into the mix today with his decision to switch allegiances to the Obama camp, and how he's calling up the recollection of the evil, bad Democratic conventions of '68 and '72 when all hell broke out to crush the hopes of Humphrey and McGovern in those respective years.

Sigh. I like having a campaign of hope and change happening at the same time I'm trying to have hope and effect change within my own life. Granted, I'm pissy and tired a lot lately and rather lacking of joy in general, it's mostly 'cos I'm so fucking tired of the work-work-work thing, but I tell you, I'm pretty pleased with what I've accomplished so far this year. If it keeps me bitchy for a while, so be it. I apologize, friends and family.

Yet, still, I wanted change, I'm making it happen. It's been a positive, life-altering year so far, on more levels than I could possibly know at this point. If I follow through in all these areas, it's going to be an incredible experience.

Through it all, I'll enjoy watching this presidential race transpire. The campaign of a lifetime, no doubt about it. Political watchers wait their whole lives for such a perfect political storm and just the right cast of characters to weather it. Like, oh my god. This is so the perfect political storm.

Nutshell? Vying for top seat in the land, we have a war hero who endured years of torture as a prisoner of war, a woman who's a political institution in her own right, who's seen the inside of the White House for eight long years, and an African-American being touted internationally as potentially the next JFK but black, not Catholic, and with the middle name of Hussein, for god's sake, all whilst the nation wages a wrongful war not yet lost but sure as fuck not won, while the economy is crashing not just at home but around the world, with a food crisis, and god knows what the fuck else is going to come pounding on the door.

It's not that anyone's enjoying the political climate, but to have THAT political climate, a true need for people in office who are capable of facing those challenges, and to have these three as the candidates of choice? And let's not forget Nader, the man keeping the art of argument alive. And a constant rallying cry of change and now and Yes We Can as a backdrop to serious discussion on serious issues? Well! Sounds like politics worth watching.

This is an absolutely incredible, beautiful, inconceivable, once-in-a-lifetime election for those of us with liberal points of view. What great openminded individuals to be able to choose amongst. Wow. It boggles the mind.

It's so hard to believe after all these years of the backward Bush administration and the horrific crap they've shovelled atop their citizens.

I never thought I'd see an election like this. I'm so surprised at how emotionally involved I am in this. I want to believe in the change that's gonna come. I wanna be just like Sam Cooke and believe. But it's been so, so long that our hope was justified. When Bush won in 2004, I was depressed for weeks, then months, then years. I'm certain there's been a degree that his presidency and the morass that North America has become under his watch has had something to do with my penchant for depression the last eight years. Fuck, he won 3 months after my mother died. THAT HELPED, YEAH, THANKS.

Fuck, man. Sometimes you just wanna throw yer hands up and go, "A little fuckin' help, big guy? Like, this too? Really? COME THE FUCK ON, man!"

Yeah, the dead mom, you know, I'll deal with it, right, but this fucking bozo the clown as president? And born-again Christian, TOO? Gotta be kidding me! Just leave me the fuck alone with my grief, and give me a leader of the free world who can at least lead, all right?

Bush... What the hell were people thinking? My god. Oh, wow. I've needed political therapy so long, man. I'm one of those people that, if I had the money, I'd be in the therapist's office twice a week for an hour, so I could spend 90 minutes bitching about society without pissing off friends and family, and about 30 minutes talking about myself. Of the 90 minutes on society, 60%, easy, on politics.

Yeah. You gotta wonder about me sometimes, eh? I was that kid in grade one who could answer a) who the Prime Minister was [Trudeau] and b) what his job was. "He's 'sposed to do what the people want him to do, fix problems with Canada and stuff." Pretty astute for 6.

All right. I gotta find a Scrabble word I can play on Facebook. Foiled with 2 Y's, an X, a J, an I, a D, and something. Hmm.