I’m not here to predict the future. I don’t know how this is going to end. But I do know how it’s going to begin.

Barack Obama^W IS the 44th President of the United States of America.

My voice.
My vote.
My hope.

Our President.

A scant 20 minutes after the polls opened here my ballot was cast with a satisfying whirr and beep of the tried and “true” non-Diebold counting machine. I confess to being a bit giddy as I moved through the queue. I couldn’t stop myself from flipping open the blue privacy folder to look at my vote a 2nd, 3rd and 5th time. I couldn’t help but smile.

This is the first time in a long, long while where I was really and truly happy to cast my ballot.

My mood is only dampened by the reports of rampant voter fraud/tampering by the local GOP. Not the least of which by our own Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen. Our “top cop” is the chair of the WIsconsin Republican party. Hell, he’s hosting the McCain/Palin “victory party” tonight in Waukesha. I ask you, how can the person who’s charged with enforcing a fair and accurate election possibly do so while jerking off the home office? Where is his zeal for justice when it comes to prosecuting paid temp workers who were TOLD TO LIE to people about their affiliations? Yeah, thought so. You are a blight, sir, and I look forward to your opponents victory party next time ’round.

What scares me? These people actually get a vote. The problem with democracy isn’t the politicians. It’s people like the ones in that video. Here are some helpful tips, from me to you, o’ people of the video.

1) Catholic doctors and Catholic hospitals are allowed to have all the moral objections to abortions or penicillin or anything else that sticks in their craws. What they are NOT allowed is to deny legal treatment to patients. Here, try this for some light reading. I know fitting the time in for intelligence is tough, what with a full day of demagoguery and dunking witches in the river, but give it a fucking shot, eh? Oh, and nice touch with the triple-peck on your baby. Why won’t those evil Democracts PLEASE think of the children?!

2) The tenets of Socialism, morally, are a beautiful thing. The belief that people should contribute to society based upon what they are able to contribute and should receive the full sum of benefits that they require from society is pretty god damned idyllic. That doesn’t make me or Obama a Socialist. Social programs in this country allow millions of good, honest and hard-working American’s to provide enough to eat for their families and to keep a roof over their heads and the lights on. But hey, it’s not you, right? So fuck poor people. Fuck people with disabilities or who are just down on their luck. The measure of a society is how it cares for the least among them. I don’t believe in hand-outs for the sake of hand-outs. I don’t believe in punishing people for being rich or successful. If a penny from me, a penny from you, and pennies from everyone in this country can feed a child in poverty or keep the fucking lights on so some single mother in Peoria can study for her GED before heading out to her 2nd job? Money. Well. Spent. I wish every fuckwit who bashes social programs could get put on a biiiiig list and then summarily denied access to each and every one of them. I wonder what that old goat says if his Social Security check is a day late?

3) There is no far-left agenda. We can’t agree on ANYTHING, let alone a fucking agenda. I realize that’s not a rebuttal, but it informs point number two - Barrack Obama isn’t far-left. With a few exceptions Senator Obama is a moderate Democrat. Liberal, for sure, but just like Senator McCain he’s nowhere near the outskirts of his party. Oh, and not for nothing, but the last 8 years have been the far right’s agenda being forced upon the country. A country, I might add, who is repeatedly demonstrated that they are MODERATES. The vast majority of people in America have opinions on both sides of the aisle. Even moreso in recent years as the traditional values of the major parties have gotten so murky. We’re currently experiencing the worst economic downturn since the great depression. After 8 years of fiscally responsible growth and prosperity under a “tax-n-spend” liberal this is hardly the crowning achievement for the party of fiscal conservatives, no?

For those of you who care about such things, and that should be ALL of you, it’s been a great couple of days.

Firstly, the opening ceremonies were just plain awesome. I don’t mean the sheer scope of things, although that in and of itself was amazing, but it was just… fitting. China has over 3500 years of recorded history! They’re not going anywhere and our generation is the first that’s truly been able to experience their culture and peoples. The TV was calling it “China’s coming out party.” I’m inclined to agree.

Michael Phelps^W , expectedly, picked up his first gold and slapped his own world record down by ~2 seconds.

Misty and Kerry, goddesses each, had a slow start but ultimately showed why they are the best players in the world with an easy 2-set win in their opening match. The men’s team, slightly less dominate, got just spanked by Latvia. It was painful to watch, they had nothing going at all.

Katie Hoff^W just took the bronze in the 400 IM. It’s her first loss in that race in some amount of time, I guess. But the winner (and silver) were both below the old WR. Australia has great swimmers. This is not news. I <3 competition. Oh, and the Aussie who took gold is a little hottie. Must be the accent. I’m weak, sue me.

I watched the crew semi-finals. Or skulling or something. I have no idea. People in boats. It was boring. I made lunch. The US team (both from New England) got spanked anyway.

The men’s gymnastic team his hella-good. So is China’s. The finals promise to be amazing.

The olympic commercials have been wonderful. Morgan Freeman’s narration for Visa has been poignant, inspirational and just plain good. We’ll call that tasteful commercialism.

That, of course, is the segue to the campaign ads. What the motherless fuck is wrong with the McCain camp? I realize that the Republican party can’t help itself but dissemble these days but come the fuck on. There’s an old tradition called the Olympic cease-fire. It would have been nice for the nominees to read that memo. The Obama ads have been tamer, but not by much. I’m just curious as to how stupid one has to be to fall for this shit? Seriously. Are you so stupid that some narrator guy saying “raise taxes” 5 times in 30 seconds makes you want to give Bush the 3rd a seat in the oval?

I caught this image over at Lum’s this morning by way of QT3. Had to post it before I head out…

So a guildmate and friend of mine is taking a year off of law school to campaign for Barack Obama. That is, in a nutshell, wicked cool.

To chronicle his adventures and to keep in touch with those of us who merely comment on politics rather than put any actual effort in he’s started up a brand new and as yet unnamed blog.

http://laskybenson.blogspot.com/

Feel free to suggest a name, we already have, but they were less than perfect. Some of my favorites were…

• O’Bama, Where art thou?
• Obama Rama Ding dong?
• Barack Barracks

Good luck man!