Election Eve 2012

I have really missed being able to blog about this election season. The other day I looked back at how many blogs I was writing in 2008. It was a lot. On average 28-33 blogs per month leading up to and during the month of the election. 

I just went back and looked at my election live-blogging from 2008. I don't think I will be doing the same tomorrow, as I don't have the kind of audience that I did four years ago. Nor do I think I'll have much to say, but we'll see about that. 

I haven't read the live-blog from 2008 since, well, November of 2008, so there were definitely things I forgot about. Like this:

7:15pm - A CNN correspondent at the McCain celebration in Arizona says, "It is a much different mood here." Yeah, like a funeral. 

8:23pm - MSNBC calling Ohio for Obama. Self-protective denial is wearing very, very thin. And with that, Josh Marshall isn't live blogging anymore. He is "F--k Ya Blogging". Priceless. 

8:59pm - Via TPM, the Rocky Mountain News calling Colorado for Obama. [Remember the Rocky Mountain News?] 

9:23pm - The shots of Grant Park are extraordinary. I'm a little nervous about such a huge celebration. I hope people are smart and safe. I hope Obama is safe. Meanwhile in Arizona, it looks like a singalong for McCain fans. 

9:50pm - Fox calls Virginia for Obama. 10 minutes out from calling the whole race? Possibly. Tap the keg. Sullivan writes, "You drinking yet? Stupid question." 

10:00pm - Called it for OBAMA! OBAMA! OBAMA! OBAMA! I can't believe Americans just did that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

11:19pm - I've said all I can say at this point. What a night. What a night. All is not wasted. Goodnight.

I think what's clear about the election this year, is that we probably won't have the race called by 9pm Mountain Time, like it was in 2008. I have a busy day on Wednesday so I am not prepared to stay up very late tomorrow. I might have to call it quits at midnight if nothing has been called by then. But, if Obama would somehow manage to win Florida and Virginia or Florida and N.C., the race could easily be called by 9pm. However, that's extremely unlikely to happen. Even if Obama manages a victory in Florida, it'll be too close to call tomorrow. At least that's my view. Nevertheless, I remain hopeful for a called race sometime tomorrow evening. I still think this is a possibility because of Obama's appearing to hold on to Ohio, PA, N.H., Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, and maybe Virginia. If his margin of victory is great enough in those states for them to be called blue tomorrow night, then Obama will get his four more years. 

To me, the choice couldn't be clearer tomorrow. If you paid attention from 2001-2008, what makes you think returning to those policies is a good idea? That's what a Romney presidency is, a return to the past. The economy was in free fall when Obama took over. We were losing approximately 750,000 jobs a month at the time Obama moved into the White House. It took him some time, but he started to reverse that trend and he still is. It's a slow recovery and I understand some of the frustration out there. But I don't understand American impatience with the recovery. This impatience signals to me that these people never grasped the severity of the economic crisis. I generally don't understand American impatience with nearly everything anyways, but when it comes to the idea of just returning to the same old policies because four years of different policies haven't dug the country out of the deepest economic abyss it has seen since the 1930s is preposterous. This is to say nothing of Obama's other accomplishments like the Affordable Care Act (which actually does insure 30 million people who otherwise wouldn't have health insurance and who won't if Romney is elected and successfully repeals ACA, don't believe me? look it up), ending our atrocious, misguided war in Iraq, and concentrating on the only one that mattered and putting it to an end in Afghanistan, and killing Osama Bin Laden (something Bush had lost sight of ever since his obsession with Iraq truly took ahold of him in the wake of 9/11). 

I have never believed in a President who is going to solve all of your problems. No such President exists. And I think too much of America doesn't know that, which is certainly a contributing factor to the impatience I referenced above. However, I truly believe that there is an honest, caring man in Obama who cares for the greatest number of Americans, far more than Romney does. And because of this I am not choosing the lesser of two evils. 

I voted early last Friday for the man who has expressed deep and passionate concern for working-class Americans and their plight, who actually has the guts to ask for a tax increase for the very wealthiest in the country. If I was in that "wealthiest" category I would gladly accept the tax increase, but I'm not, and I don't feel bad for anyone in that tax bracket who would be asked to pay 3-4% more. 

I still believe in Obama. I don't believe a vote for Obama means a vote against America, but that's exactly the meme that the Right has pushed over the last two years of campaigning. This idea that America is becoming un-American, that our opportunities are slipping through our fingers, and that Romney represents the "true" American spirit is simply vacuous. 

I am hopeful for tomorrow and I believe there is clearly a right and a wrong choice on the ballot. I hope America makes the right one.