I have yet to see Senator Obama’s nomination speech.  This fact is sort of killing me inside.

I’ve seen the reaction; the tears, the hugs, the Rainbow Brite on crackedness* of a good deal of our nation.  I was there, and I missed it.  And YouTube has it in 6 different parts, except I can’t find all six.

Someone help, please.  (updated to add…found it.  Watching tomorrow.)

Anyway, I have to write the politics post and I haven’t seen his speech and that leaves me at a disadvantage because right now my head is swimming with RNC speeches and I don’t have enough DNC to balance it out.  What’s a girl to do?

I call myself a Democrat for the same reason I say I’m from Philly.  It’s just an easier way to explain a complex situation.  I could tell you that I was born in Philly, raised and schooled in Delaware, but my brothers, cousins, grandmother and aunts lived in Philly and that I spent a good bit of every school vacation with my mom’s best friend and her daughter, Alisha, who felt more like a sister to me than my own one ever did.  I could also explain how, if you drive south out of Philly, when you come to the Welcome To Delaware sign (which is 3 feet from the Thanks for Visiting sign) you’ll see a Hilton right there on the border.  I lived RIGHT behind the Hilton, about a 5 minute walk from Philly.  So, yeah, I claim them both, and now you are completely bored to death and unsubscribing from my blog because I just wasted all your time explaining something that I could have summed up with, “I’m from Philly!  Go Rocky!”

With that, yeah; I’m a Democrat.  Ish.  I am not registered as a Democrat.  I only was once, and that was because I had to be for something I was voting for, what I don’t know.  I am a registered, expatriot Independent.  Why? Because I don’t like enough about either party to pick a side.  The middle seat in the car is always the funnest one to ride over bumps on anyway.  I tend to agree much more with Democrats, but many of my dear dear friends are Republicans who’s opinions I totally value, and after talking politics with them, I don’t want any of their faces to melt off like that guy at the end of Raiders, so they’ve got to be alright people, eh?

I want to tell you a secret.  The first time I ever voted in a presidential election, I voted for John Kerry.  I am a terrible American.  I wanted to vote for Al Gore, but dude….I was nursing a baby.  I wanted to vote for Bill Clinton, but I didn’t even know how to.  Before that, I wasn’t old enough.  Before that, I lived in a box called radical right wing christian cultity, where you just didn’t vote, you just didn’t pay any attention at all to politics.

The one thing I can say about my breed of unamericanism?  I never complained.  I knew that by not casting my vote, I was taking away my right to bitch about the outcome.   I stayed the heck out of it.  I did bitch a little about the Gore thing (and by a little, I mean someone had to scrape my brains off the windows when my head exploded) but I used my Nursing Card.  Got me out of Jury Duty that year, too.  I cannot do any one thing and have someone attached to a boob at the same time.  Not capable of it, never will be.

The thing is, I have just never felt so totally passionately about a presidential nominee to Get Up for him.  I voted for Kerry, not because I thought he was the greatest thing to happen to American politics since Lincoln, but because I was in Anyone But W phase.  And as much as W and I will never, ever be friends, I can admit there are a few things about him that I don’t abhor, and maybe even one or two that I admire.  Not in his politics, mind you, but in his personal life.

I am of the philosophy that most Americans, when brought to the sacrificial alter that is the race of the presidency, have got to be at minimum decent guys.  They’ve got to at least want something great for this country.  (We’re going to except our current president from this conversation; I still can’t figure out what his point was.)  I haven’t really stumbled across anyone that I can so villanize as to be driven to Rally The Troops against him *ahem* and I haven’t found one candidate so morally, ethically, or politically superior to another that I’ve felt the need to Rally The Troops in support of him.  I prefer my quiet, private support of my candidate of choice, partly because I try to be quiet and private in my real life but mostly because I just don’t know what the hell I’m talking about, and tend to talk myself into some pretty deep holes when I get going.

This would be a good point to offer you a flash light and perhaps one of those rope ladder thingies if you’d like to start finding your way out of this particular hole.

All of this leads me to my trouble with this election.  I really, really like Barack Obama.  I LIKE that he’s sort of a newbie.  I’ve been screaming for a president that wasn’t a politician for years.  I like that he has big vision, that his dreams for America are large.  I like that he is really rooted in picking us up by our bootstraps and pulling us forward.  He’s a good man.  He is a public servant.  He gives a shit about you and me and that guy over there.  I think he would be a fine, upstanding, noteworthy president.

And I don’t even think it should matter, but in my heart it does; I would jump up and down six ways to Sunday to see a black man finally take the seat at the helm of this nation.  I honestly would cry with pride and joy over it for, like, his entire first year in office.  I wish it wasn’t a big deal, I wish that weren’t the reality of America, but it is and I would totally be all SUCK ON THAT, KKK FUCKTARDS.

And then their is John McCain.  And you know what?  I really, really like him, too.  I like that he’s dedicated his entire fucking life to serving his nation.  I admire that even though no one in America deserves a Kit Kat break more than he does, he keeps trudging right along.  Seriously, dude…point taken.  Retire already.  I love that he got totally kicked down by the current administration, and he quietly toed the line, and he kept his friends close and those guys closer, as the saying goes, and now he’s coming out slowly but surely and saying, “Um, you dudes totally fucked up.  Watch me try to fix it.  Who’s ya daddy, now?”  I know everyone in North America will tell me I’m on crack, and that he’s in Bush’s pocket, but in my heart, I don’t believe that.  I think that, given his chance, he would shine.  I think he is invested in this nation with his entire heart and soul.  He’s kind of proven already that he doesn’t really want anything much for that allegiance, that he’s not trying to fill some big, evil agenda.  I think he would be a fine, upstanding, noteworthy president.

They both have platforms they are running on that I sorely disagree with.  They both have viewpoints on issues that I am in complete agreement with.  My problem is that I can’t decide which one makes me happier, or better yet, which one’s viewpoints I have more of a problem with.  I have less of an issue with Obama, but on a bigger scale, and I have many, little, nagging concerns about McCain.  I think I need a large scale and a duck.

When it comes down to it, I honestly think I could live with either one of them as my next President.  I think they’d both do everything they could to make America better and stronger; even if I don’t personally agree with their definition of better and stronger, I think they’d be trying to do the right thing.  I think they are both open to the idea of some bi-partisan input, which in my opinion is what this nation is in desperate need of.  Maybe McCain will never pass Universal Health Care, but I live with Universal Health Care right now, and it’s got it’s perks to be sure, but there are definite issues, too.  Maybe Obama will over tax the crap out of us, but yeah, I live in BRITISH COLUMBIA.  I pay more in taxes than most of you will ever dream of, but I get something tangible for it, so there’s that.  I dunno.  I just know that one of these men really, really speaks to me, and the other one isn’t so far off, either.

Am I am democrat?  Am I a republican?  I don’t care.  I am an American, and I am really hopeful for our country’s future, and I am hopeful that we as citizens can come together behind our commander-in-chief, whoever he ends up being, and work together to make America the kick ass country is deserves to be.

*Thank you eternally, Jane the Sane, for that little nugget.

**Before you go leaving me 8 million links to web pages telling me why either of these guys is god and/or the devil, I PROMISE you, I have researched them.  A lot.  Extensively.  When I should have been doing laundry and feeding my poor, hungry children.

***PS: I am so not referring to Sarah Palin in here yet.  It’s coming, I swear.