obama-rama

he saw me, walked right over, winking as he said hello with a hollywood smile. he stretched out his hand, shook mine and said, "very nice to meet you, thank you for having me." so yeah, add another mega-celebrity to my ridiculous list.

another zelig moment, i was again elbow-to-elbow with incredibly powerful, intelligent and famous people. up close and personal, i got to hear obama speak casually to a well-heeled group of the faithful. (lol, the woman next me kept slipping off her manolos. they weren't even that high or pointy!)

first deval patrick spoke, then senator kerry, and his anger was palpable. that mccain has ridden the war hero wagon to political success while he was swift-boated to defeat as a traitor must cause unfathomable pain. he went so far as to proclaim mccain a danger to the country.

it was a birthday party, so both he and the governor were serious yet light-hearted, and obama took the stage to thunderous applause. yeah, he's got it. that can't quite be defined, but you know it when you see it -- charisma. he spoke over twice as long as scheduled and even this old cynic found herself welling up. his idealism, his sincerity, his fierce desire to bring america back to greatness through good works and a rectitude that our founders would admire, spoke to the young noodle still inside me who believes people are good and want to make the world a better place.

he covered a lot of ground in a concise way, was self-effacing and never once slurred mccain. taking the campaign high road worked for our current governor, but will it win the country?

obama is looking to raise nearly $500 million, so i'm guessing mccain has a similar target. (staggering. truly.) we already see where the republicans are putting their money through garbage like the britney/paris ad. obama curved elegantly around the the race card and his "funny name" as fodder and spoke forcefully about the divisiveness of that kind of propaganda. (my brain was burning with memories of shrub claiming to be a uniter, not a divider. aaaaaaahhhh!!!!) however, a recent ny times poll found that only 31% of white voters had a favorable opinion of obama, so even clumsy ignorant ads will hit an easy mark.

as i listened, i kept wondering when and why intelligence and a fine education became a detriment in politics. shrub went to yale and mccain graduated from the naval academy, yet they successfully sneer at the equivalent diplomas of men like gore, kerry and obama. (that shrub was only a legacy and barely got by within a drunken haze, is a digression that only angers me, so let's not.) public schools and libraries were founded well early in this nation, our forefathers respecting the importance of an informed populace. (ok, just white boys, but hey.) how did the neo-cons get so far in dissing liberal smarts? general ignorance helps solidify their tyranny, agreed, but how did it happen? maybe i'm crazy, but i want my president to be smarter than me, ok?

maureen dowd (she was a journalist once, right? now she just writes to incite. reading her is masochism i can endure in public, i guess...) wrote a pithy piece this week comparing obama to jane austen's mr. darcy. GAAAAAHHHH!! from where does the impression of pride or hubris in this man come? and why is she recklessly perpetuating it? she's playing the race card in a back-handed way, is she not? mocking him as an uppity darkie? it pissed me off in a way that really surprised me.

there was another op-ed piece in the times asking where is obama's landslide. but he doesn't need one, does he? shrub won in 2004 by only 2.5%, the slimmest margin of any sitting president. his handlers parlayed it into a mandate to further trample the constitution and plunder the country.

in both 2000 and 2004, i went to bed on election night thinking my guy had won. ugly wake-ups, you bet. in only 8 years our country has been made into a shameful mess.

i still have hope.

i know some of you think it's tim wakefield, but right now? obama da man.