I was cruising around the net today, visiting my old stomping grounds from 2003-04; mainly left-wing political blogs with fairly small readerships/participants to check out what the general mood is, and it's damned gratifying to read what these people are thinking and feeling now. They've waited a long time for the end of the Bush regime. The prevailing mood used to be anybody but Bush---literally anybody. So to have their long-awaited villains forced to hand it all over to somebody new AND to get a leader of the caliber of Barack Obama really is a dream come true for these people. I couldn't handle it after Kerry lost, and I ceased all my participation in all things political because I am a depressive wuss and cannot take it when I lose. I freely admit that, and it's something I didn't know about myself until then. But I won't be thanking BushCo for generating the situation that provided me with that insight!

I got a celebratory email today from my friend Paula in DesMoines. She's the one good thing I took away with me from my horrible year there (1988), and we've been friends ever since. She got me to thinking about Iowa. I am so proud of Iowa: they were the first ones to embrace Barack in the caucuses back in January. and I will always remember that the news of that win made us SMILE. We walked around the rest of that week with these goofy smiles that we couldn't help, and we didn't even know ourselves WHY. Barack Obama won, not the candidate whose win had been predicted countless times---so many times that lots of pundits were already referring to Hillary Clinton in terms of having the nomination, nevermind the primaries, in the bag already---but Iowa said not so fast...and so the winner wasn't the frontrunner for mostly-white, mostly-conservative Iowa, but BARACK OBAMA.

And we smiled and felt an unfamiliar emotion for us, who feel abused and violated and just beat to shit from 8 years of toxicity: hope. BARACK OBAMA WON THE IOWA CAUCUSES.  It meant EVERYTHING.  The possibility of surprise.  The dawn of the realization that one candidate did NOT necessarily just HAVE to be the nominee.  No, Iowa picked the smart, articulate black guy to whom we could listen talk seemingly endlessly.  Ah, the possibilities....!

And now....what got started inside both Perry and me back in January has finally made it to the White House, and along the way, Iowa turned into a blue state. And I'm going to stop using those terms, because Barack said it only divides us further: we are the United States of America. I'm going to try to be the best American I can be, because I know he's going to be the best President he can be.

I can't even try to understand the most liberal state in the country (California) and how efficiently they crushed their gay population and amended their state Constitution to define legal, recognized marriage as between a man and a woman, period. I thought I heard that they are allowing all the currently legal unions to remain so...in fact, it doesn't make much sense legally that they could go back and nullify all the ones that began while they were legal...I just keep thinking about Ellen DeGeneres,and how hurtful this must be even though she must be ecstatic about Obama's win.

So all the states that could have voted to outlaw abortion DIDN'T.
But all the states that could have voted to make it illegal for gay people to marry DID.

Isn't that odd?  Aren't we a strange, contradictory people? 

The last thing that kinda took the shine off the diamond for me was Al Franken's incredibly tiny (537 votes out of 2.4 million) margin of loss to incumbent lying useless moron Republican Norm Coleman in Minnesota. How can they be so close to Iowa, yet so fucking stupid? Results that close are automatically subject to a recount. Living in Texas and being represented by two really awful Republican senators who just keep winning, election after election, I am here to say I'd be OVER THE MOON to have Al working on my behalf. I owe much of my political activism and acumen to Al; his book, Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them was my first delve into trying to figure out WTF was going on out there with the hate and the fear and the bleak, black things that were coming out of Washington. I love Al, and Iove how much he loves America, even as he chronicled her hijacking by this group of people (neocons) with their bullshit agenda. I can't believe Minnesota doesn't want him!  I mean, why wasn't it a landslide?

If the recount doesn't prove him the winner, I sincerely hope he returns to his radio show on Air America AND writes a book about the campaign experience.  I am dying to know all the dirty details of Norm Coleman and his shady self written only as Al can.  When he's ready, and when he's receiving treatment for PTSD from the stress.