Last night the tornado sirens sounded just when Barack Obama was settling in to his sharp critiques of John McCain. When C, J, and S joined us in our basement, and our crank radio helped us determine that the local weather guy didn't know a whole lot more than we did, we all decided the sirens were a local republican conspiracy.
I get pretty nervous when those sirens go off, but it's also the case that my nerves were piqued from watching Obama's speech. I'm so pleased for the Obama campaign, and I'm cautiously excited for this country--cautiously because who knows what the summer and fall hold, and because people's shortsightedness has repeatedly disappointed me. I'm tempted to say that Clinton was a far more formidable opponent than McCain, kind of like when the NCAA bracket designers put the scrappiest teams on the same side. But. Given the work these primaries have done to generate interest among so many groups who have previously (and understandably) not really cared about elections, and given the really impressively bad job our current administration is doing, it stands to reason that democratic voters will show an unprecedented turnout in the fall. So I'm optimistic, but my optimism has a jittery cast.
If the dems can't do it this year, I might well move down to our cold, dark basement.
