GranolaBox

So, I’m hanging out at Starbucks in the fairly affluent part of Rochester, NY waiting to get an MRI on my shoulder, which is currently having an attachment disorder. It tried to secede from the rest of my arm a few weeks ago, so I figured this was something worthy of an insurance co-pay.

Across the street there’s probably a hundred or so people carrying signs, playing music and screaming whenever someone honks their horn in support, or derision for that matter, all for one Mister Barack Obama. As jaded as I am about politics lately, rallies like this inspire me. To see all these lily-white sons, daughters, mothers and fathers of suburbia stepping out on a fairly cold winter night and rallying behind a man who is half black gives me just a little tingle of hope for the future.

Being a Patriots fan after yesterday’s Super Bowl, I’m in need of a little inspiration. The only thing I found remotely inspiring about the Super Bowl was the reading of the Declaration of Independence about a half hour before the Super Bowl started. It was cool, but they didn’t mention any of the greivances of the American subjects against the King. Fox probably a list of greivances worthy of revolt might unduly stir the populace.

Even though all of the candidates on both sides of the aisle (with the exception of Ron Paul of course) are frighteningly similar and don’t drift anywhere close to creative solutions to our country’s many ills of late, it’s nice that we don’t have a dictator or badass terrorists groups whacking the opposition.

I admire the numbers and enthusiasm of the Obama crowd, but I also think the five or so people standing at the other corner carrying Hillary Clinton side also deserve merit. I’m glad we don’t have the ethnic violence associated with elections in say, Kenya, or those Clintonites would be toast right now.

I’m not sure how statistically effective rallies are versus television commercials, but at least they show that ordinary people are active in politics in addition to scary behind the scenes evil geniuses like Karl Rove and James Carville. It’s exemplifies the kind of democracy inherent in the propaganda of early America that made people think their opinion was wanted and that they actually made a difference.

I made up my mind that I’d throw down for Obama well before today… (it was Friday I think) but this may have swayed my vote. I’m not excited about voting for Obama, but I would be slightly less excited if I voted for Clinton. So tomorrow I vote for Obama, and then doing a little more research into Ron Paul to see if I’d support him as an independent.

Such is life after football.

Filed under: Politics on February 4th, 2008