I've been living in central Texas, in the Austin Metro, for about a decade now. In 2008 I was happy to vote for Obama. In my suburban, outside of Austin neighborhood, I was happy to see quite a few Obama signs sticking up in my neighbor's lawns. I actually don't remember seeing a single McCain/Palin sign at all. 2008 was a great year and it looked like Austin progressiveness was moving outwards towards the commuter suburbs as well. But that was last time, this time is different...
My neighborhood went from a lot of Obama signs and no McCain signs to a few Romney signs and absolutely none for Obama. I drove around hoping to find one brave soul, alas I could not. Whatever had my neighbors proud to be voting for Obama had changed in the past four years. Was it that their minds had changed? Maybe they were still Obama supporters but not as enthusiastic? Maybe they didn't want to advertise their Obama vote this time around. What it is, I sure hope it isn't that they switched their vote to the vile republican.
In any case, my wife and I case our vote during early voting in Texas. The total ordeal was about 20 minutes. Everything went very smoothly, people in line were nice, no one was talking politics. Remember, this is an Austin suburb, so the share of R's is much much bigger than in Austin proper. The poll site was well run in this upper middle class area. We checked in with our voter card. The poll worker scanned it in, had us sign something and gave us a bar code. Then we stood in line for less than 20 minutes. I was proud to vote for our President. I was proud to vote for Paul Sadler who I know has no chance to win but was brave enough to go up against the nefarious Ted Cruz and tell him like it is. I was proud to vote for my Dem house candidate, even though I know he will not win, not outside the Austin district.
Even though I know Obama will not win Texas, he can count on our two votes in his popular vote victory and I will again be proud to vote for such a great President.