A Worrywart Charts Her Future Course

Back in late August of this year Eugene Robinson penned an op-ed piece for the Washington Post entitled The Worrywart Party. In this column, Mr. Robinson admonished the Democratic Party to "snap out of it," and essentially quit worrying and second-guessing all the possible ways that we, as Democrats, may still manage to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory. As either of my sisters would be quick to tell you, I have always been the cockeyed pessimist of the family. So as I sit here in my cozy little home in Tulsa, Oklahoma watching Tom Brokaw grilling John Kerry and giving Fred Thompson many free passes on Meet the Press, I can't shake that sinking feeling that in a few days I will be debating whether to sit in my running car in my garage and say good-bye to a world that is just too broken and ignorant to continue to live in, or put that same car in gear and head north to Vancouver, British Columbia, CANADA, where I and my boyz will make a fresh start, having sold the house and disposed of most of my possessions.

Here are the things that give me hope:
--The fact that Obama is up in the polls and that those polls likely have not taken into account the legions of mostly young voters who have abandoned their land lines and communicate almost exclusively by cell phones and who do not carry with them the prejudices of their parents and grandparents. So I am expecting that the turn-out among young voters will offset or even surpass the dreaded Bradley Effect. This hope is personified in the views of my nieces and my nephew who are all too young to vote but who are solidly behind Obama and are aghast that their grandparents are supporting McPalin.
--The fact that 8 of 10 people admit that this country is going down the crapper and we must change direction lest we end up permanently languishing in a crap stew of our own making.
--Barack Obama, the person, gives me hope. As I survey the long campaign, I have witnessed a steady course, an eloquent orator, sound judgment and a reluctance to give back in slime the disgusting charges that have been levelled against him by an opposing camp that has sunk to new lows in their campaign, despite McCain's earlier promise to run a clean and high-minded campaign.
--The web site (it is so much more than a blog) FiveThirtyEight.com and pieces like the following: Brett Marty's Ten Predictions - From the Gut give me hope (and yes, I do check it early and often each and every day).

Here are the things that have me worried:
--The polls that have Obama up by double-digits in the national poll and up by anywhere from over 100 points and down by a mere 5 or 6 points in the Electoral College.
--The Republican denizens (of which many members of my immediate and extended family are a part) who continue to believe that Obama may not have been born in Hawa'ii and that his record at Harvard University may have been fabricated - I find this to be an odd criticism given that the same people who are questioning Obama's academic credentials put so little value on an ivy league education.
--Probably the thing that keeps me up most nights is the nightmare of 2000 recurring in 2008. I remember so clearly election night of 2000 when I went to bed smiling as the major networks had called Florida for Al Gore, only to wake up the next morning to a horrible scenario that would keep me upset and physically ill for the next month when finally the Supreme Court overrode the will of American voters and selected George W. Bush as the 43rd president of the United States. This same horrible scenario was repeated in 2004 - only the location and subtlety of the subterfuge had changed. And what a price we have paid as a nation and have imposed on the rest of the planet who had no say in the leader of the free world.

Creator, if you are there and if you care at all about this world you have made, please let the voices of hope and change reign on this world. As Studs Terkel titled his last work "Hope Dies Last," a phrase that was coined for him by Jesse Del La Cruz, a farm worker. When times are bleak, they say in Spanish - Esparanza muera al ultimo, “Hopes Dies Last.” Let's all hope that this time hope stays alive.

This post is dedicated to a very special friend who shared this thought with me last night - F.E.A.R. equals "False Events Appearing Real." Here's to a fearless election day, and with many thanks, here's to you, ADB :)