The First Post - Election 2008

The idea for starting a blog has been rattling around in my brain for a while, now. Above all, I wanted something to push me back into writing, but I was also looking for a way to get back into critically consuming and thinking about media. It's amazing what you don't do when you're not prodded by college professors. Somehow a blog seemed like the best - and most appropriately self-indulgent - outlet. I woke up this morning, unable to sleep in despite having the day off, and thought 'what better time to start than now.'

The idea of this is nothing too profound. It's a chance for me to share interesting things I read, watch or see throughout my day. It's also a lesson in sticktoitiveness for me: to see if I actually write more than one entry. So bear with me.

At any rate, I decided to write today because of (cross your fingers) the importance of this date. I've been thinking about the election a lot and while many people are extremely confident, I can't fight off the air of dread. Gawker had an article yesterday on liberals going through this exact feeling. The article chalked it up, essentially, to superstition and misremembering the past:

"Basically we've all psychologically collapsed the entire last month or so of the 2004 campaign into that tiny window between polls closing and results coming in, when the "exit polls" looked great. That was just a couple hours of false hope, after weeks of superstitiously hoping "undecideds" would magically break to our guy even though he was down in the polls. In other words, it was like being a John McCain supporter, this time around."

I'm not saying, on a rational level, I don't disagree with this. Clearly, my fear does have a lot to do with watching Bush steal the election in 2000 and then win yet again in 2004. Despite the optimistic results the polls are projecting , I just can't shake the feeling of dread. But doesn't it make sense for me to feel this way? After all, all of my experiences with elections as a voting, semi-functioning adult have been let downs. But I'm not denying that 97 percent of my fear of a loss is superstition.

But also, I'm just thinking of how much we have to lose. What if the results come in tonight and trickling back tomorrow and Obama is not, in fact, a victor? I think the impact would be devastating. Last Tuesday's This American Life made me choke up on the train yesterday. The episode looked at all these people who had worked so tirelessly on the campaign. In a magazine journalism class in college I wrote about post-election depression for those young people who had worked on the Kerry campaign. I just can't help but wonder what will happen to these people's feelings about the electoral process if Obama - a candidate who people put so much of their hope into - loses.