Mid-Morning Thought
As if by serendipity as I type this, Stevie Wonder's "Uptight (Everything's Alright)," with its monster groove and chorus ("Baby, everything is alright/Uptight, outta sight!") comes up on my i-pod. Have to run to teach, and won't have much time to post today, so can I just say how cool it is to see the words "President-Elect Obama" all over the news today? Holy crap, that feels great!
UPDATE (12:20 P.M.): Just saw that Indiana went for Obama. Indiana, which hasn't voted for a Dem for President since 1960. Indiana, where I voted in my first presidential election in 1992 (well, actually I voted absentee, but was in Indiana), where I remember the wild celebration when Clinton won that year, which included a bunch of us jumping into the fountain in the center of the IU campus. Indiana, always the splotch of red in a sea of electoral blue. Indiana, whose racial history in the 20th Century has often been an embarrassment to so many of the extraordinarily good people who live there. Indy-frackin'-ana. I am speechless, actually, but very, very glad. And with North Carolina still (as far as I can see) uncalled, this could be an even bigger election than we thought last night.
Comments
I've been calling Indiana for the campaign some. Fairly impressive considering the state seemed to be doing everything it could to slow down early voting and, for that matter, regular voting -- with polls closing at the ridiculously early hour of six.
And thanks for that link -- I've been mentioning the power of the KKK in Indiana and the D.C. Stevenson case for days as an example of how much things really have changed, but the details have been foggy. (I only even know about it because of a TV movie about the case with, I think, John Heard as Stevenson.) And, you're right, people in Indiana are nice. Actually, ask anyone who's been phoning and that's largely true of the whole midwest. (Though Chicagoan are more like New Yorkers...I know this because my mom's side of the family is from there.)