I couldn't be more excited to vote. Nothing sounds better to me than getting this all over with - chilling with a nice manhattan in hand and watching the results roll in.
This is my first presidential election that I am eligible to vote. I missed 2004 by just about 2 months. At 21 and still living at home, I have to deal with my family's extremely Republican views, while trying to stay composed as I civilly debunk their claims and... well, brag about my candidate.
I have been wearing my Obama button on every shirt I've worn all week, it's been fun to point it out and annoy some friends of mine who don't like either McCain or Obama, but they all take it as part of my sense of humor.
Maybe I shouldn't have worn it today, though.
I was talking to my mom about... well, um, cannibalism. I don't remember how it came about, when it turned to politics, or any connection between the two. I had worn my button on my left side, while she was on my right. I forgot there was a mirror to my left so she must have seen it plain as day.
My mom brought up ACORN. I thought to myself that if she was trying to present a credible argument, she wasn't doing a very good job of it by bringing them up. I mentioned that McCain also appeared at an ACORN event and gave a speech. She claimed he was just "investigating" the place, even though there's video where he's clearly just giving a speech.
So from there it went on to Bill Ayers, as is to be expected. I sometimes don't control myself too well while speaking of politics, so I had to throw out Gordon Liddy. She was clearly unaware of who he was, as she claimed he "wasn't that bad" and tried to say, basically, that Ayers single-handedly bombed buildings. I gave her details of Liddy, but she wold not believe them. I, of course, mentioned that any independent analysis only concludes that Ayers and Obama did not even have a close relationship, while McCain publicly decared Liddy an "old friend."
I then made it clear that the point of my bringing up McCain's connections was not his connections, it is the double-standard.
She then proceeded to bring up ACORN once more and how scared she was that Obama would turn us into a socialist nation, since the only thing to really back that up are the claims of his tax plan. I asked her if she knew what socialism was, to which her reply was "big government." I then told her that she basically just admitted she did not know what she was talking about, and I asked how a tax plan could actually be socialist. She was puzzled.
Moments later, she said something along the lines of "We never have good candidates."
In my head, I couldn't help but think of how great my candidate is.
What we're up against are lies. The lies have filled my mother's head, and my mother has filled other family member's head with them. These lies and exaggerations of truth outnumber THE truth 20:1, even after great work on the Obama team's part. In the last days of the election, we must get truth out. And we must never forget it even if the worst happens on the 4th. Don't ever let ignorance win out.