Stinkin' Liberals

The Democratic National Convention kicked off today in Denver. Obama is gearing up to accept the nomination. The impending election is adding electricity to the air. So much so that Ryan has talked politics more in the last month with me than he has in the entire course of our relationship.

I believe there are two reasons he is talking politics with me.

Reason #1: Fear. He is afraid I'm going to vote for John McCain. He doesn't hate McCain, he is just fed up with the war in Iraq, especially now when we are having so many financial troubles at home (and by home I mean in the larger sense of America).

Reason #2: Safety. He feels safe to talk to me about politics now that I've dialed the crazy back a little. I used to be a little on the uh, shall we say, passionate side when it came to politics and if you didn't see things my way, then well, you were just plain wrong. And stupid to boot.

It's amazing how open a person can be when they don't fear being attacked. I wasn't much to fear, though. I can't argue my way out of a wet paper bag. Not with logic and reason anyway. I am, however, great at making sweeping generalizations and making references to "them" and "they" and "studies" and "recent statistics". I am not so great at references, names of publications from said studies and the numbers behind the statistics.

Now if I want to argue a point I stop and try to collect my thought and organize them. Once I realize the thoughts are pretty random and based mostly on emotions I shrug my shoulders and say, "eh".

So, the DNC (aside, am I the only one who thinks of a D&C when you hear DNC?) is under way. Yep. I am a little interested in the events. Brace yourself, Mom. Wendy, Joel, Ike (oh, wait, you live in the stone age and don't have a computer so you will have to get this info in person), anyone else who has known me longer than 7 years.

I think I am going to vote for Barak Obama. Yep. Come November I will fill in the oval next to the Democrats candidate.

Gulp.

Talk about taking a leap.

I don't think my aunts who live in the area have the address to this blog. I think I will not share this bit of information with them since they are a little more passionate about politics than I am - and they have the ability to use reason, logic and facts in an argument! Deadly combination for me.

Ryan and I were talking about McCain and Obama at dinner last night. Neither of us think McCain is bad. We do think he is really, really old and that he will continue to push the same agenda in Iraq. Both of us are sick of the hemorrhage of funds that are flowing into that region when our dollar is tanking at home and abroad.

Of course, now that I am a mother I think more about the loss of our soldiers. Every day the body count grows and grows. I never understood why my mom didn't want my brothers to join the military until I had Gavin. As much as I appreciate the Armed Forces I think I would be a basket case if Gavin decided to join the military.

Ryan and I are in agreement that McCain would be a better president from a military standpoint but that Obama would be better for domestic issues.

I kind of like the presidential races where there is a candidate that I hate, well, that is such a strong word - a candidate that makes me want to retch when I see his face. That's better. Some politicians make it easy, like making claims that they invented the Internet or that they were under hostile gunfire when visiting Serbia (Croatia?) and later saying she remembered wrong (really? Were you remembering the other time you were under gunfire?).

There you have it folks. This is big news. Big. After 7 years of living in Seattle "they" finally got to me. I'm one of "them" now. I am in favor of big government taxing us all into poverty so we can all share a little rather than some have a lot. (Just kidding - that is for the benefit of my brother).