Ich Leibe Es

Full of wine and Chinese food that I rushed like a mad woman to buy on the way home, I am finally starting to achieve calm and confidence that Obama is going to win this election. I have been so moved by the amazing turnout for this election and by the equally amazing stories to come out of it.:

On the way home listening to NPR, they mentioned one of their bloggers who is a poll worker in Santa Monica, CA. A woman in ACTIVE LABOR came into her polling place to vote today before going to the hospital to have her baby. They let her go to the front of the line since she was having contractions as she stood there.

A sorority sister in Kentucky waited two hours to vote this morning before having to leave to make a job interview she could not miss. Last I heard, she had returned to the polling place to wait again after the interview and was in her third hour of waiting.

My husband's sister (shout out to you, Christina) sent me a link to this article from Yahoo about an elderly woman who, following a stroke, needs a feeding tube and cannot walk. Yet she still voted from an ambulance and on a gurney.

Another story from NPR that I heard on Monday was about a gentleman who, much like the late Christopher Reeve, was paralyzed from the neck down. With his daughter's assistance, he still managed to cast his ballot.

I love these stories so much because they demonstrate so clearly what can happen in this country when the people are presented with real choice - not the damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't choices we've been faced with so often recently, most notably in both 2000 and 2004. I don't have any idea if Obama can sustain this level of idealism; when he can no longer blame Bush for the problems this country faces - when, in fact, they become his problems - this sense of unity may fade into the background. But at this moment, Obama seems to have the type of mandate that Bush claimed to have, but which few presidents actually enjoy. My hope is that he can sustain it and achieve real change.