Some things I know

Here are some things that I know:

I want Barack Obama to be our next president.

That he won the state where my sister spent Super Tuesday standing on corners with a sign and pounding the pavement and knocking on doors makes me immeasurably proud.

That it would be wrong for me to miss work at such a busy time to attend his visit tomorrow morning makes me unbelievably sad and has made me weep more than once today.

I had a picture of Barack Obama hanging on my office wall for over a year, and I felt like I should take it down a few days ago because we're not supposed to advertise such opinions there. Which bums me out and makes me mad. I think it's even made me afraid to talk about it on my own personal website. Which is just ridiculous and it's stopping now. It should have stopped a long time ago.

My vote for Kerry was my vote against Bush. I never felt any kind of love for Kerry or any deep belief that he could save us from ourselves. He just wasn't Bush and that was enough for me. But now I feel so much love for Obama, and I believe in him so intensely, and I feel like if he doesn't make it, it's going to leave a trail of broken hearts all throughout this country, my own included.

I have no idea what is going to happen. I know I will be voting in my state's primary on Saturday and for whom I'll be casting my vote. Mine is just one little opinion, mine is just one little belief, but it feels huge inside me right now.

I've watched this video at least a dozen times, and I've cried big honking tears every time. I sent it to my mother, who is a Republican because she is pro-life, really, I think is the real reason; she was zealously, obsessively into politics during Clinton's final term but has stepped back the past few years and focused more on spiritual matters; she told me recently that thinking of Hillary as president makes her "sick to her stomach." She is one of those people who would never, ever, ever vote for Hillary under any circumstances, but I think she would consider voting Democrat if that Democrat were Barack Obama. Case in point, I sent her this video even though as a rule we do not, cannot discuss politics, and she wrote back, "What a GREAT speech!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" with all those explanation points. It made me feel close to my mom. I truly think that if Obama were the candidate, she would at least stop and think about him as an option before voting in a knee-jerk manner along party lines. I feel like he could really speak to her heart. But I worry there are many like her who would cast a vote that would in essence be a vote against Hillary. I think a lot of people's dislike of her dates back to 1992 or even before then and that's a long time to dislike someone. That would be the message they'd send with their vote for the Republican candidate -- no Hillary, no way -- just like my vote was not really for Kerry but against Bush. And I don't really see people lining up to vote against Barack Obama in the same way. You know what I mean? I am no political strategist but this is what my instinct tells me. And I swear I believe that my parents are both big bleeding liberals deep down inside. I do not hate Hillary, and as my sister and I discussed in one of our many rapid-fire e-mails about this, it will not take long for us to get behind her if she's the nominee. But. But.

Obama makes me feel like I have a string of explanation points in my heart. I love him, and I believe in him. I think that if he were our president, the world might stop hating us so much and might even love us a little bit again. Maybe that is simplistic and maybe that is naïve. But I really believe it.